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| Click Image to Enlarge The King's Theatre Fan 1787-1788 The Victoria & Albert Museum |
The King's Theatre, Haymarket was originally called The Queen's Theatre after Queen Anne. Opening in 1705, the theatre quickly became the place "to be seen." A person's seat at the theatre was an excellent measure of one's social standing.
This fan, made between 1787 and 1788, demonstrates just how going to the theatre, and where you were seated, proved your social standing. The fan, with ivory sticks and paper leaf, is printed with the seating plan of the theatre on one side and the layout of the subscribers' boxes on the other.
Subscribers-- those who rented boxes for a season at the theatre--could include Mrs. Fitzherbert, mistress of the Prince of Wales, and other important figures from Court, the peerage or the aristocracy. Those in these seats held discs or tokens of ivory or mother-of-pearl in order to prove their right to be seated there. The closer a person sat to the subscribers' seats, their greater their chances of being seen, and seeming important. This fan allowed a lady to be able to see in advance where to sit her party.
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