Skip to main content

Folding fan: M.308-1985

Object information

Current Location: Gallery 34 (Fan Gallery)

Maker(s)

Maker: Unknown

Entities

Categories

Description

Folding fan, double paper leaf, painted in bodycolour and watercolour. Sticks of pierced, carved and painted ivory with chinoiseries; guards of pierced, carved and painted ivory with mother-of-pearl backed chinoiseries (18+2). Rivet set with green pastes. Front: three cartouches with men, women and a lake scene; back: woman in a landscape.

Folding fan, double paper leaf, painted in bodycolour and watercolour. Sticks of pierced, carved and painted ivory with chinoiseries; guards of pierced, carved and painted ivory with mother-of-pearl backed chinoiseries (18+2). Rivet set with green pastes. Front: The front leaf has three cartouches, bordered by gold and brown frames and decorated with flowers. In the large central cartouche, a man is holding up a woman's dog, sitting in front of a hut and a tree, holding the lead. To the right, a boy is fishing in a lake; in the background there is a woman and a man sitting with chickens. The flanking cartouches show landscapes with fishermen. The top edging is of a white paper ribbon; the bottom edging has a gold line. Back: a woman is standing in a landscape with two trees in the foreground and a fence in the background. Top, right and left, have borders of scrolling blue foliage with pink roses. Sticks: the scene on the sticks is carved symmetrically and has polychrome plants, buildings and Chinese figures. Below the scene there is a row of pierced hearts forming a window when the fan is closed. The first three sticks on each side have one stick at the bottom and two at the top, the next four have two on the bottom and three on the top, and the central four sticks have again one on the bottom and two on top. These changing elements form a very interesting pattern when the fan is closed. The head is decorated in a similar way and when the fan is closed forms circles on the bottom. Guards: both guards are decorated in a similar way. From the bottom to the top: two rectangular parallel piercing below the rivet, two above, a single rib, a heart shape, a hut and some leaves, tow ribs and foliage with a man with a sunshade sitting in the middle of the guard proper.

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

18th Century, third quarter#
Circa 1760 CE - Circa 1769 CE

People, subjects and objects depicted

Components of the work

Leaf composed of paper bodycolour
Guards composed of mother-of-pearl Length 27.2 cm
Sticks+guards composed of ivory

Identification numbers

Accession number: M.308-1985
Primary reference Number: 117893
Old catalogue number: DR 27/348
Old object number: 351
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://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/117893 Accessed: 2024-12-28 18:04:30

Citation for Wikipedia

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

{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/117893 |title=Folding fan |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-12-28 18:04:30|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-117893

Sign up for updates

Updates about future exhibitions and displays, family activities, virtual events & news. You'll be the first to know...