Unfolding Pictures: The Toilette Fan, 1670-80

Fan
French, 1670-80
The Victoria & Albert Museum

“The toilette,” the process of getting dressed, was a fashionable subject for a fan leaf in the late Seventeenth Century. Such scenes were often depicted on elegant fans. Here’s an example of such a fan showing an attractive, elegant room which opens on one side with a view of a distant landscape behind. Therein, putti are preparing Cupid’s bath and making his bed. The vellum leaf, painted in watercolors, is based on paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder.

The reverse is painted with three bunches of roses within a broad border which repeats the shape of the fan leaf. The border is punctuated with a design of flowers and formal leaf patterns.

The sticks and guards are of pierced and carved tortoiseshell and have been decorated with hand-painted squiggles. The fan was made between 1670 and 1680 in France. Some feel that it was meant to celebrate the “Appartement des Bains” at Versailles—the sumptuous bathroom of Louis XIV's mother, Anne of Austria. 

 

Unfolding Pictures: The Toilette Fan, 1670-80

Fan
French, 1670-80
The Victoria & Albert Museum

“The toilette,” the process of getting dressed, was a fashionable subject for a fan leaf in the late Seventeenth Century. Such scenes were often depicted on elegant fans. Here’s an example of such a fan showing an attractive, elegant room which opens on one side with a view of a distant landscape behind. Therein, putti are preparing Cupid’s bath and making his bed. The vellum leaf, painted in watercolors, is based on paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder.

The reverse is painted with three bunches of roses within a broad border which repeats the shape of the fan leaf. The border is punctuated with a design of flowers and formal leaf patterns.

The sticks and guards are of pierced and carved tortoiseshell and have been decorated with hand-painted squiggles. The fan was made between 1670 and 1680 in France. Some feel that it was meant to celebrate the “Appartement des Bains” at Versailles—the sumptuous bathroom of Louis XIV's mother, Anne of Austria. 

 

Unfolding Pictures: The English Garden Fan, 1760-1770

Click image to see startlingly large grapes.
Hand Fan
England, 1760-1770
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Scenes of lush, elegant English gardens were considered suitable and fashionable adornment for hand fans in the late Eighteenth Century. Take, for example, this one, made between 1760 and 1770, which offers a lovely vignette of such a garden populated by a ruined classical colonnade as well as a folly in the shape of a pyramid. It’s quite possible that his folly is also an icehouse.

What’s curious about this fan, making it unlike other British fans of the era, is the fact that the central vignette of the landscape is surrounded by a strangely disproportionate still-life of grapes, peacocks and a spaniel. Still, it’s an attractive fan and in remarkable condition when one considers its age. The leaf is made of vellum and the guards and sticks of carved, painted and gilt ivory.

Unfolding Pictures: The English Garden Fan, 1760-1770

Click image to see startlingly large grapes.
Hand Fan
England, 1760-1770
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Scenes of lush, elegant English gardens were considered suitable and fashionable adornment for hand fans in the late Eighteenth Century. Take, for example, this one, made between 1760 and 1770, which offers a lovely vignette of such a garden populated by a ruined classical colonnade as well as a folly in the shape of a pyramid. It’s quite possible that his folly is also an icehouse.

What’s curious about this fan, making it unlike other British fans of the era, is the fact that the central vignette of the landscape is surrounded by a strangely disproportionate still-life of grapes, peacocks and a spaniel. Still, it’s an attractive fan and in remarkable condition when one considers its age. The leaf is made of vellum and the guards and sticks of carved, painted and gilt ivory.

Unfolding Pictures: The Triumph of Alexander Fan, 1670-1700

Hand Fan
Unknown Italian Maker
1670-1700
After a painting by LeBrun
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The vellum leaf of this Italian fan is painted with watercolors and illustrates the “Triumph of Alexander,” showing when Alexander the Great entered Babylon. Made between 1670 and 1700, the scene is taken from one of a set of five paintings which the famed painter Charles Le Brun created for French King Louis XIV.

The unknown fan painter has adapted the composition of the painting to cleverly fit the shape of the fan leaf—shifting some groups from the original to new positions for better balance. The ends of the ivory sticks are adorned with silver piqué work and both the sticks and guards are set with patterns of tiny silver nails. The guards are further decorated with mother-of-pearl. The reverse of the fan leaf is painted with flowers.

Unfolding Pictures: The Toilette Fan, 1670-80

Fan
French, 1670-80
The Victoria & Albert Museum

“The toilette,” the process of getting dressed, was a fashionable subject for a fan leaf in the late Seventeenth Century. Such scenes were often depicted on elegant fans. Here’s an example of such a fan showing an attractive, elegant room which opens on one side with a view of a distant landscape behind. Therein, putti are preparing Cupid’s bath and making his bed. The vellum leaf, painted in watercolors, is based on paintings by Jan Brueghel the Elder.

The reverse is painted with three bunches of roses within a broad border which repeats the shape of the fan leaf. The border is punctuated with a design of flowers and formal leaf patterns.

The sticks and guards are of pierced and carved tortoiseshell and have been decorated with hand-painted squiggles. The fan was made between 1670 and 1680 in France. Some feel that it was meant to celebrate the “Appartement des Bains” at Versailles—the sumptuous bathroom of Louis XIV's mother, Anne of Austria. 

 

Painting of the Day: The Hydrangea Hortensia, c. 1780

The Victoria & Albert Museum

This painting of a hydraganea is something of a mystery.  We don’t really know who the artist was except that he or she was based in Maidstone in Kent, and his or her work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780.

The work on vellum is in the style of Georg Dionysus Ehret (1708-70), and it is possible that the artist here was one of his many pupils.

Unfolding Pictures: The Heart and Crown Marriage Fan, 1700

Marriage Fan
Germany?, 1700
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Eighteenth Century, one of the most popular marriage gifts for brides was a hand fan which a bride could carry at her weddings. These fans often depicted the ceremonies of betrothal and marriage.

This fan from about 1700 with a painted lead of hearts and a crown is the earliest marriage fan in the V&A’s collection. Two hearts surmounted by a gold crown represented the “coronation” of the union of two lovers. The style of the time is evident in the Baroque swags and roses surrounding the central scene. The fan’s origins are uncertain, but it is thought to have been made in a provincial workshop, possibly in Germany, rather than one of the fan-painting studios in Paris, London or Amsterdam.

With ivory sticks and a vellum leaf, such a fan would have been an expensive gift for a bride, so we can deduce that this was made for a young lady from a somewhat affluent family.