Unfolding Pictures: The Eu Fan, 1886 (Reposted from May 12, 2011)

Antique Hand Fan
Eugène Lami, 1886
French
The Royal Collection

This fan with its splendidly painted leaf, magnificent carved ivory sticks and guards with applied silver, diamonds, rubies and sapphires which form the letters “M.A.” had long been admired by Mary of Teck who had an eye for such things.


The fan was the property of French Queen Amélie and represented the work of one of the finest fan-makers in France, Eugène Lami. The fan’s leaf depicts a scene of the Château d’Eu, the country residence of the Orléans family, as it would have appeared in the Seventeenth Century.

Queen Amélie bequeathed the fan to Queen Mary upon her death in 1953, but Queen Mary died weeks later and never received the fan. It was delivered to HM Queen Elizabeth II—Queen Mary’s granddaughter--in 1954.