Folding fan: M.203-1985

Maker(s)

Maker: Unknown

Entities

• Folding fan

Categories

• Fans

Description

Folding fan, double silk leaf, printed and painted in body colour and gold, and embroidered with gold sequins. Sticks and guards of pierced and fretted ivory decorated with foil and painted (14+2). Rivet set with clear pastes. Design includes Wedgwood cartouches.

Folding fan, double silk leaf, printed and painted in body colour and gold, and embroidered with gold sequins. Sticks and guards of pierced and fretted ivory decorated with foil and painted (14+2). Rivet set with clear pastes. Front: the front leaf has three cartouches with mythological scenes, the middle of which is the largest and shows Flora sitting under a tree looking at Zephyr next to her. She is holding a garland of flowers, which two putti are playing with, and there are two nymphs dancing on the left. A little Cupid with bow and arrow sits on the right in the background. The scene is bordered by a row of petals and dots, and a row of sequins. The flanking cartouches are in grisaille style and bordered with a row of sequins. On the left, there is a cupid standing on a pedestal with two women in front of him, one of them held by another putto; she is getting water out of a basin on a tripod in front of her. In the cartouche on the right, there is a standing couple holding hands and a women sitting next to them touching the man's arm. Between the cartouches there are small round medallions with square insertions on the top with a naked woman standing in front of a vase with an arrow on the left, and a naked man, holding a cloth, standing in front of a round-topped column on the right. There are two brown bordered oval medallions on the top corners of the leaf, crowned with sequins and sprays of flowers painted in blue in the style of Wedgwood Jasperware with two standing figures each. Underneath there is a vase and an oval medallion hanging from a floral spray, sequins and arrow sequin scrolls. There are two more Wedgwood scenes hanging from the circular medallions, decorated with sequin scrolls and a trophy of a quiver with arrows and a torch above it. Two dark-red lines run round all sides of the leaf. Back: the three medallions from the front are copies and decorated with exotic birds and insects. Sticks: the sticks are alternately pierced and plain ivory. Sticks 1 and 5, 10 and 14 are decorated with two Wedgwood medallions. Sticks 7 and 8 form an oval Wedgwood medallion in the centre. Guards: Both guards are decorated in a similar way with stars and scrolls on the shoulder and two Wedgwood Jasperware motifs on the guard proper. The bottom one has a figure in a lozenge and the top one has two figures in a medallion.

Notes

History note: Colonel Leonard C. Messel (1872-1953); his daughter Anne, Countess of Rosse (1902-1992)

Legal notes

Purchased with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and a gift from The Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum