FANS AND FAIR LADIES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 288, 29 August 1908, Page 11

FANS AND FAIR LADIES.

• Twcnty-ono fans (says a Melbourne paper) have been kindly lent for exhibition m tho Victorian National Gallory by Lady Carmicljael; belonging, as they do, to a department ofthefino arts which has been cultivated with especial success in China from timo immemorial, and in Franco evex since Louis XIV issued a decree for the institution of_ a corporation of fan makers. In tho composition of tho fans collected by her Excellency tho carvers in ivory and other materials have combined their skill as designers, and their delicacy and intricacy of touch, in- tho exquisite tracery of tho ribs and frame work of the articles,, which Tesomblo tho choicest lace work, with tho refined productions of the water-colour draughtsman, at a time when Watteau and Bouchor did not disdain, to exercise their pencils in decorating the fans of tho court beauties of Versailles.

They are interesting and instructive examples of this branch of art in France at an epoch whon it was no uncommon thing for a hundred pounds sterling to be paid for a fan, especially if its case had been coated with the Merlin varnish, which bad been discovered by a coach builder of that name, who carried tho secret of its composition with him to tho grave. Marechal, who has been called the French Lucretius, has said. that_ "in tho hands of a beautiful woman a fan is tho sceptro of tho world," and at tho timo these emblems of feminine power were carved and painted in Franco every movew ment of them was expressivo of somo sentiment of love, flirtation, or intriguo on tho part of those fascinating ladies of tho French Court, and could convey a message or mako an appointment by a well understood code of signals, manipulated with as much rapidity as dexterity. The folding fans seems to have been introduced into Portugal . from Japan in tho fifteenth century, and from thence travelled into Spain and Italy. It was brought into France, together with artificial perfumes, from the latter country by Catherine do Medicis; was composed of ostrich or other feathers, and was only used, by persons of tho highest rank. 1 . The Chineso fans belonging to Lady CaT--michael aro specimens of a form of art workmanship of great antiquity in that country, wnero'they serve as autograph albums, and aro frequently inscribed with the names of persons who have mado themselves famous in art, literature, 1 or science. They have bccome for many ages an integral portion of the national costumo, while they figure prominently in all ceremonial visits. A legendary claim to the invention of tho fan has, indeed, been put forth by some Chinese writers. The story runs that one evening tho beautiful Kan Si, daughter of a high mandarin, finding herself incommoded by the heat -at a great feast of lanterns, . took off her mask, bnt as it was; doi riguour not to expose her face to tho profane gaze of the people, sho commenced agitating her fan violently in front of her countenance, so that it served as a sort of veil. Her oxample was immediately followed, and before tho close of the festival 10,000 masks wero being similarly used. From that timo forward, the fan began to supersede tho mask, and is now in universal use. But the actual origin of tho former is lost in the night of time. Wo know that it is to be found carved on some of the earliest architectural monuments of ancient Egypt, and that among oriental nations the bearers of largo fans navo always cbnstitutcd the personal attendants of monarchs ■ and other high personages; so that tho probability is that in hot climates, whore the heat and the in- 1 sect pests aro particularly obnoxious, the fan may, at a very remote period, have been invented as a for the branch of a tree, previously used to protect some primitive, potentate in the forests of Asia or Africa from, tbo attacks of mosquitoes, and to stir, into cooling motion the languid atmosphere of. his Royal hut. . .