The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1885-09-25
THE Fan.
How 1t Has Been Used in Ancient and Mod.
ern Times Among the People Of Various
Nations

AT the Dazaar OF the Eemale SChOOl
of Art, Queen square, says The London
Telegraph, are exhibited some exquis-
itely painted fans, the work of students
of the school. Such fan, it is stated,
her majesty the queen, the most illus.
trious of collectors and amateurs, in
tends to give the Princess Beatrice on
the occasion of her marriage. Judg-
ing by the reputation of those who are
intrusted with carrying out the royal
commands, the work when completed
should deserve to rank with the best
specimens of the art in its palmiest
days of the seventeenth century.
Those who take an interest in fas-
cinating subject, which from time to
time has employed the genius of many
of the most skillful painters, versifers
and handicraftsmen of Europe ever
since the Renaissance, will not fail to
remember that the delightful loan ex-
hibition of fans at South Kensington
in the year 1870 was actually initiated
and largely supported by the queen
During the past fifteen years there
have been other exhibitions of the kind
but the catalogue of the first Kensing-
ton loan collection still keeps it's place,
and is most highly priced by amateurs.
It.is no uncommon complaint that
gentlewomen obliged by necessity to
earn living find few paths open to
their enterprise. Yet, if the oft neg
lected and oft revived fashion of using
painted fans were to come in again,
owing to an impetus given from the
highest quarter, another and wide
field would be afforded to female labor.
In a Partisan directory of about a
century and quarter ago the master
fanmakers number $50, and each mas
ter must have employed large guam
tity of educated artists and ingenious
artisans to supply the immense de-
mand of the time for such beautiful
trifies. As a matter of course, the
lady students of the Slade school, in
Queen square, and at South Kensing-
ton, and the innumerable schools of
design scattered up and down the
country, could not acquire the delicate
touch of the true fan-painter without
some natural aptitude, and consid-
cradle amount of patience and close
application. If, however, wealthy
ladies would but follow the leade of
the first lady in the land, and the
market were there, the rest would
follow. England abounds in magnifi-
cent specimens of the best period of
the Partisan fancultus. For this rea-
son, when the noble and gentle emf
grants, driven from France by the
horrors and rigors of the revolution,
sought shelter on our shores the
ladies brought their jewels and their
fans along with them; and afterward
the poverty, not the will, of the pos
SCISSORS induced them to part with their
loved treasures for garment and a
meal. In this way history plays
strange freaks. According to Brillat
Savarin, the elegant emigress from
the salons of Marie Antoinette-her-
self passionate fan amateur-were
fain to teach dancing and cooking to
keep the wolf from the door; and we
are supposed to owe something of our
saltatory grace, besides the way to
mix salad and fold an omelette, to
''the red fool-fury of the Seine,n which
cut off the heads of king and queen
only to bow the knee to consul and
emperor. Not that fans, and very
beautiful ones, were unknown in Eng
land before Vatican and Lancret,
Pater, Lemoine, Fragonard, Boucher,
Gravelot, Gillot, or Moreau the young
er made the French school illustrious.
Shakspear, Ben johnson, Hall, Mas
singer, Gay. and Addison are in evil
dence to the contrary.
Among the gifts presented to Queen
Elizabeth on her accession was a fan
contained in the haft of "meat-
knife" the offering, by the way, of
the court cutler. Shakespeare con-
stantly introduced the fan which gives
occasion for some most laughable
comic business in one of the lighter
scenes of 'Romeo and Juliet" What
play goer does not re-
member Mrs. Stirling as the Nurse to
the Peter of Mr.. Blackstone, in the
cast, when Adelaide Nelson was the
brightest and most fascinating of Ju-
LETS? Who was Mrs. Bridget, the
lady who lost the handle of her tan in
bard suggests that the article fetched
half crown, and that Ancient Pistol
had Is pence of the plunder. Could
Mrs. Bridget, mentioned only by
name, and only once, have been any
relative of the French gentleman
whom Hamlet beat at the foils prior
to the return of Laertes in rebellion to
the court of Denmark-also referred
to by name, yet never seens Silver
handled fans were the rage when
Shakespeare was a young man. Ben
Jonson speaks of the ''least feather
of lady's "beauteous FAM" and Mas
singer, in "The Bondman," has:
..'Ravish a feather from mistress
fan and wear it as favor" With
very few exceptions, the early En-
glish fans were more or less like the
y-fappers of the east, where all the
decorative arts had their cradle. Ac-
cording to Blondel and Octave Uzanne,
among the best authorities on the SUBJ
ject, the origin of the fan is lost in the
mists of the past. 1t often crops up
in ancient Buddhist literature as an
old-fashioned article of daily use, and
was known in China when our ances-
tors for their only garment wore
coat of paint. Both in China and Ja-
pan the fan has always been employ
ed as an instrument of command. A
famous general used to direct three
army corps at one and the same time
with the motions of his fan-a piece
of information suggestive of the light
-