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Folding fan: M.237-1985

Object information

Current Location: In storage

Maker(s)

Maker: Unknown

Entities

Categories

Description

Folding fan, double leaf of chicken skin, painted in bodycolour, printed and gilt. Gold paper binding on upper edge. Sticks and guards of shaped and pierced ivory (16+2), engraved, overlaid with gold foil and inlaid with cut-steel sequins; the guars are also set with painted mother-of-pearl covered by glass/crystal discs. Rivet set with red pastes. the front depicts a lake scene with a barge and putti; the back floral sprays.

Folding fan, double leaf of chicken skin, painted in bodycolour, printed and gilt. Gold paper binding on upper edge. Sticks and guards of shaped and pierced ivory (16+2), engraved, overlaid with gold foil and inlaid with cut-steel sequins; the guards are also set with painted mother-of-pearl covered by glass/crystal discs. Rivet set with red pastes. Front: painted overall with a lake or river landscape. In the middle putti propel a barge bearing two couples in wedding costume. Above there is a temple containing an altar of love and gaily-attired putti and goddesses frolicking joyfully in the clouds. In the water in front of the barge there are four putti swimming, one sailing a little boat, one riding a swan and two couples riding dolphins. On the right and the left there are wide gilt borders of formal flowers, foliage, scrolls and Greek key, and across the top a narrow border of scrolls and formal foliage. Reverse: A central vignette of a card party printed in black and painted colours, flanked by stylized floral sprays painted in gold and black. The right and left sides have wide borders of formal foliage and scrolls painted in gold with touches of black, and roses in two shades of pink and white. Across the top there is a narrower border of foliate scrolls, an ellipses and triangles with a rose spray at the centre. Sticks: elaborately shaped and pierced to produce rows of circular holes flanked by foliage. At the shoulder each stick has a circular un-pierced area decorated with trefoil leaf in gold foil surrounded by cut steel sequins. Guards: the lower part is set with cut steel sequins. At the shoulder there is a circular inset of mother-of-pearl painted with a pansy framed in gold and covered with a disc of glass/crystal. The upper part is pierced with a formal design, partly gold foiled and backed with gold foil. On the back of the guard on the left when the fan is showing the front, there is the number '2629' in black ink.

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

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bought (1985-01-28) by Countess of Rosse, Anne

Dating

19th Century, second quarter#
Production date: circa AD 1830

People, subjects and objects depicted

Components of the work

Leaf composed of paper ( gold) chicken skin gilt ink gouache
Sticks+guards composed of foil ( gold) sequins ( steel) ivory
Guards composed of glass/crystall mother-of-pearl Length 23.0 cm

References and bibliographic entries

Identification numbers

Accession number: M.237-1985
Primary reference Number: 117822
Old catalogue number: DR 24/320
Stable URI

Audit data

Created: Saturday 6 August 2011 Updated: Wednesday 15 July 2020 Last processed: Thursday 7 December 2023

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Applied Arts

Citation for print

This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Folding fan" Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/117822 Accessed: 2024-03-28 23:58:41

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:

{{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/117822 |title=Folding fan |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-03-28 23:58:41|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

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https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/objects/object-117822

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