THE FAN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1939, Page 10

THE FAN

ITS ROMANCE AND CHARM. One of the treasured possessions of her Majesty the Queen is a beautiful white ostrich feather fan. The feathers are South African, and are mounted on lemon tortoise-shell “sticks.” One stick is a representation of the Queen’s Royal crown and cypher. The history of the fan is a blending of the romantic and the practical. This symbol of fashion and coquetry, as we know it, is a diminutive of the ancient fans of the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Assyrians. From the frequency with which it is part pf the ornamental designs on Greek vases, the fan must have been common to .the Aegean civilisations of the dim past. And we can imagine it in its richest and most bejewelled form in the hands of the basillissas (empresses) of Byzantium in medieval days. Some of the ancient fans were of very large size. They were for the practical purposes of creating a cooling current of air and wafting away the swarms of flies. The fan first achieved popularity in England in the reign of Henry VIII. It had originally been introduced by English voyagers to China. The courtiers of the merry and much-married monarch revelled in the charm of the new toys. They became the craze, not only of the ladies, but also of -the young sprigs of the nobility. The fans were circular or oval, and the “sticks” were heavy. Every gentleman of the period of any pretensions to fashion had a fan to carry when out walking and another for social occasions. When Queen Elizabeth came to the Throne the fans were daintier in size, and it was common knowledge that GJoriana’s smile could be won by presenting her with a heavily-jewelled specimen. She had an elaborate collection of such gifts. During her reign the folding fan, as we know it today, supplanted the rigid form for feminine use, although if is believed that in Japan the folding fan was in use as early as the seventh century, an ingenious inventor having taken his cue from the wings of the bat. In the reign of Louis XIV. of France, the suppression of the Huguenots drove many thousands of them to England, with the result that the subjects of the sportive Charles .II had the benefit of •fluttering and flaunting the works of art of French fan-makers. Some of the loveliest exhibits in the museums of Europe are painted fans. Great artists have been attracted to this form of art, not only painters, but goldsmiths, jewellers, metal-workers, and carvers. In Sydney Miss Thea Proctor has shown how exquisite such work can be in design and colour. > Nevertheless, in English circles, the fan has largely become a decorative symbol of past glory. In Spain, once a land of passionate romance, the “lan- > guage of the fan” could convey happi- ■ ness or despair to the lover who sought : to win the favours pf his beloved. With her fan she would invite or dismiss or amuse herself with flirtatious ,gestures that held his love by slender threads ; of hope.