Unfolding Pictures: Queen Alexandra’s Hummingbird Fan, 1870

Hummingbird Fan
Brazil, 1871
Turkey and Chicken Fathers on a Gauze Base
Mounted Brazilian Ruby Hummingbird
Turned Bone Handle
The Royal Collection

A lady was never without a hand fan—especially at a lavish function where fans were considered important accessories. Then, as today, fashions and trends tended to be a little silly, but were nonetheless popular. Novelty fans of many varieties were often produced as collectables. One such novelty fan featured a taxidermy bird mounted on a face screen of feathers.


Fan-makers in Brazil—who had easy access to hummingbirds—produced these fans by the boxful. Curiously, these fans didn’t come into England directly from Brazil. Instead, they were imported to Canada where they came to the attention to British nationals who quickly shipped them home to England.

The Princess of Wales, Alexandra (later, Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII), was always one to keep up with fashions and was enthusiastic about this face screen of chicken and turkey feathers with its deceased ornament of a ruby hummingbird. Because she had one, of course, everyone had to have one. And, soon, the Royal court was infested with an army of mounted hummingbird carcasses.

In a strange bit of incongruity, many noble ladies carried fans like this one to the 1871 Waverley Ball in honor of the centenary birth of Sir Walter Scott. The theme of this fancy dress ball was to see all of the attendants dress as characters from Scott’s novels. Alexandra dressed as Mary, Queen of Scots and carried this fan which would have made a lot less sense than it already did, if almost every woman in the room wasn’t also carrying one.