Folding fan: M.220-1985

Maker(s)

Maker: Unknown

Entities

• Folding fan

Categories

• Fans

Description

Folding fan, double silk leaf, decorated with bodycolour, gold paint and applied gold sequins. Sticks of pierced ivory with silver and gold incrustations; guards of carved ivory with silver and gold incrustations, backed with mother-of-pearl and coloured foile (14+2). The design includes a central scene with several people and two cartouches.

Folding fan, double silk leaf, decorated with bodycolour, gold paint and applied gold sequins. Sticks of pierced ivory with silver and gold incrustations; guards of carved ivory with silver and gold incrustations, backed with mother-of-pearl and coloured foile (14+2); rivet set with square, table cut, clear pastes. Front: Three medallions framed by gold sequins on a pale green ground. The central scene (with two rows of sequins) has a lady and her son going towards a couple of peasants, and a boy cleaning a gentleman's shoes on the right. The group is flanked by architecture; in the background there is a mountain landscape with a village and a mansion. The main scene is flanked by two ovals, one with a woman selling flowers from a tray, the other one showing a man carrying water. The free spaces are filled with sprays of flowers and exotic birds. Top and lower edges have a gold border, top edging of gold foile; right and left border has scrolling gold ornaments on a darker background. Back: the stitching of the sequins on the front shows on the reverse forming the same medallion. The flanking ovals are undecorated; the central medallion has a Chinese style branch with red berries. Sticks: from the guards to the middle, the sticks are decorated in a symmetrical way: scrolling, fretted ornaments and crosses encircled by a gold line; three sticks form a medallion with flowers and a vase, the first stick is repeated and in the centre four sticks form a big vase surrounded by flowers. Guards: Both guards are decorated in a similar way: on the shoulder a bunch of arrows, a trumpet over a ribbon with a tambourine. (The inside of the back guard is decorated in the same way). The guard proper is deeply cut and backed with mother-of-pearl and with puce foile at the top left corner. On the bottom, a music trophy comprising a hat, a mandolin and a trumpet, above a vase with a scrolling ornament in the middle, a flower on top and a pierced flower top left.

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