THE FLABELLUM AND EARLY FEATHER-FAN
[Illustration: ANGEL WAVING A FLABELLUM (From the Book of Kells.)]
The Christian Church was quick to perceive the utility of the fan
as an instrument of religious ceremonial, imparting to this object
a mysterious importance, a sacerdotal distinction, preserving and
shielding it from common use; it has even been claimed that this
appropriation was instituted by the Apostles themselves, Bishop Suarez
attempting to substantiate this by an appeal to an apocryphal liturgy
attributed to St. James.
The earliest recognised notice, however, of the flabellum as a
liturgical ornament is in the Apostolical Constitutions, which direct
that after the oblation, before and during the prayer of consecration,
two deacons are to stand, one on either side of the altar, holding a
fan made of thin membrane (parchment), or of peacocks’ feathers, or of
fine linen, and quietly drive away the flies and other small insects,
that they may not stick against the vessels; this use of the flabellum
being derived, not from the ritual of the synagogue of the Jews, but
from that of the Pagan temples. Butler (_Ancient Coptic Churches of
Egypt_) quotes a similar rubric from the liturgy of St. Clement. The
same author refers also to flabella waved by the deacons in the Syrian
Jacobite, and probably also in the Coptic, rite for the ordination of a
priest at laying on of hands—they appeared at solemn festivals and at
regular celebrations of mass.[64] On Good Friday, also, they were used
at the consecrations of Chrism—seven deacons holding flabella, walking
on either side of the holy oil when carried in procession.
[Illustration: SILVER PROCESSIONAL FLABELLUM (From Butler.)]
Many evidences of its early adoption by the Latin Church are extant.
Moschus (_Prat. Spirituale_, § 150) cites an occurrence showing its
employment in the time of Pope Agapetus, A.D. 535, in which a deacon,
who had falsely accused his bishop, was removed from the altar when he
was _holding the fan_ in the presence of the Pope, because he hindered
the descent of the Holy Spirit on the gifts. This same author (_Prat.
Spirituale_, § 196), in narrating how some shepherd boys near Apamea
were imitating the celebration of the Eucharist in childish sport, is
careful to mention that two of the children stood on either side of the
celebrant, vibrating their handkerchiefs like fans,[65] thus showing
that the use of the flabellum was general even at this early period. In
a letter of St. Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, _c._ 1098, accompanying
the present of a flabellum made to a friend, its use and mystic import
are explained—the flies, representing the temptations of the devil, are
to be driven away by the Catholic faith.
Gradually the waving of the flabellum acquired a deeper symbolic
meaning—it was held to signify the wafting of divine influence upon the
ceremony, the movements to and fro symbolising the quivering of the
wings of the Seraphim; hence we find representatives of the Seraphim
playing an important part in its ornamentation. In the Book of Kells
we have a representation of the four evangelists in which the Seraphic
symbol of St. Matthew is figured by the crossed flabella, each having
a pair of bells with triple hammers; the remaining three evangelists
being represented by the usual symbols of the Lion in the centre, and
the Bull and Eagle at the lower corners.
Germanus (Neale, _Eastern Church_, p. 396) goes even further, and
holds that the vibration of the flabellum typifies the tremor and
astonishment of the angels at our Lord’s Passion.
In a Byzantine fresco at Nekrési (Caucasus), of a date uncertain but
somewhat late, an open sanctuary is represented with two angelic winged
deacons waving seraphic flabella around the head of the second person
of the Trinity.
[Illustration: COPTIC FLABELLUM. (From Butler.)]
We have, then, in these flabella, two distinct types—the one composed
of some yielding material such as vellum or peacocks’ feathers, the
handles usually of ivory; the other rigid, and formed of metal, either
silver or silver gilt, this latter being essentially a processional
fan; both being used in ceremonial processions and celebrations of the
mass.
Metal flabella also divide themselves into two classes—the
large-handled processional fan, and the short hand-fan; an example of
the latter is given from Butler, and consists of a circular disc of
metal decorated with two rude figures of the Seraphim interspersed with
Romanesque ornament.
Actual specimens of ancient flabella are almost non-existent,
although a few have been preserved on the Continent; one of the
most famous being that of the abbey church of Tournus, on the
Saône, south of Chalon, at present in the Carrand collection, Museo
Nazionale, Florence. This remarkable example, which may be taken as
a characteristic type, is formed of a strip of vellum folded _à la
cocarde_, painted on both sides with figures of St. Philibert and other
saints divided by conventional trees. The outer borders consist of a
continuous scroll of Romanesque ornament interspersed with figures of
animals. Latin hexameters and pentameters are inscribed on the three
concentric borders of the fan, as follows:—
[+] FLAMINIS HOC DONUM, REGNATOR SUMME POLORUM,
OBLATUM PURO PECTORE SUME LIBENS.
VIRGO PARENS XPI VOTO CELEBRARIS EODEM,
HIC COLERIS PARITER, TU FILIBERTE SACER.
[+] SUNT DUO QUAE MODICUM CONFERT ESTATE FLABELLUM;
INFESTAS ABIGIT MUSCAS ET MITIGAT AESTUS,
ET SINE DAT TEDIO GUSTARE MUNUS CIBORUM.
PROPTEREA CALIDUM QUI VULT TRANSIRE PER ANNUM,
ET TUTUS CUPIT AB ATRIS EXISTERE MUSCIS,
OMNI SE STUDEAT AESTATE MUNIRE FLABELLO.
[+] HOC DECUS EXIMIUM PULCHRO MODERAMINE GESTUM,
CONDECET IN SACRO SEMPER ADESSE LOCO;
NAMQUE SUO VOLUCRES INFESTAS FLAMINE PELLIT,
ET STRICTIM MOTUS LONGIUS IRE FACIT.
HOC QUOQUE FLABELLUM TRANQUILLAS EXCITAT AURAS,
ÆSTUS DUM SEVIT VENTUM FACIT ATQUE SERENUM,
FUGAT ET OBSCENAS IMPORTUNASQUE VOLUCRES.
The handle is formed of four cylinders of white bone, two being
ornamented with semi-naturalistic vine foliage running spirally round
the stem, the two lower fluted. These cylinders are united by nodes or
pommels, tinted green; on the middle node the inscription MICHEL · M
·, on the upper [+] IOHEL ME SCAE FECIT IN HONORE MARIAE. The stem is
surmounted by a capital with four figures of saints, whose names appear
on the node immediately beneath: S · MARIA · S · AGN · S · FILIB · S ·
PET. On the capital rests the guard or box which receives the flabellum
when closed; the four sides are of elaborately carved white bone with
green-tinted borders; the front and back panels, betraying evidence
of a different hand, are now in the Musée de Cluny, Paris, and
consist of arabesques of foliage with figures, birds, animals, etc.,
modelled with great spirit. The two lateral panels or faces form the
richest portion of the fan, and are carved with six subjects from the
_Eclogues_ of Virgil. Three seated senators with other figures, two
shepherds with oxen; three shepherds, two of whom are playing pipes,
some sheep in the foreground; a seated shepherd blowing a horn; another
shepherd with oxen and goats; a shepherd and satyr with dog and goats;
and a seated shepherd with two oxen.
[Illustration:
Photo by Alinari.
The Flabellum of Tournus. IX. cent.
Museo Nazionale, Florence.]
[Illustration: Photo by Alinari.
The Flabellum of Tournus, details.
Museo Nazionale, Florence.]
The modelling is somewhat rude and archaic, but extremely rich in
decorative effect. One edge of the fan is fixed in the box, the other
is attached to one of the lateral panels, which, in order to open the
fan, is drawn over and attached to the reversed side by means of a cord.
Both sides are figured in colours in Du Sommerard’s work _Les Arts du
Moyen Age_.
Of other flabella which exist, one is preserved in the Dominican
Monastery of Prouille, in the diocese of Toulouse; another, with a
handle of silver, was formerly at St. Victor, near Marseilles.
In the British Museum is a portion of an ivory handle of a flabellum,
French, of the twelfth century, about twelve inches in length,
finely carved with figures of the twelve Apostles and emblems of the
Evangelists. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a similar fragment,
but smaller, carved with compartments of animals, mythical beasts,
monsters, etc.; these probably formed the two divisions of one single
flabellum. These handles were sometimes square-shaped, as in the
instance of the fragment in the Salting collection at present in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. This is also French, of the fourteenth
century, and is carved on each of its sides with figures of saints in
niches, with crocketed arches.
A portion of the cylindrical stem of a flabellum or aspergillum,
probably French of the twelfth century, is in the British Museum. This
represents the occupations of the twelve months of the year in three
bands, as follows: January, a two-headed Janus looking in opposite
directions; February, a figure seated before a fire; March, cutting
trees with a hatchet; April, gathering blossoms; May, an equestrian
figure with hawk; June, a mower with sickle and hooked stick; July, a
mower with scythe; August, a reaper with sickle; September, thrashing
wheat; October, sowing corn; November, killing a pig; December, pouring
wine into a cask.
The figures are separated from each other by trees, and the three
bands by rings ornamented with foliage and zigzag patterns with
semi-rosettes, and at top and bottom are rings with half-defaced
inscriptions.
There is also in the same collection a capital of morse ivory for the
handle of a flabellum, North German, twelfth century.
These instruments figure repeatedly in inventories of church and abbey
property. Butler quotes from one at St. Riquier, near Abbeville, in
831, ‘a silver fan for chasing flies from the sacrifice.’ At Amiens,
in 1250, there existed a fan for a similar purpose, ‘flabellum factum
de serico et auro ad repellendas muscas et immunda.’ In 1363 La Sainte
Chapelle possessed ‘duo flabella vulgariter nuncupata muscalia, ornata
perlis’; in 1376, ‘ij flabella, Gallice esmouchoirs, ornata de perlis.’
In the sacrist rolls of Ely, ‘Item, j flabello empt. ad Aurifabrum, 7d.
Item, in pari flabellorum pro le Colpeyt empt. 6d.’
A Salisbury inventory mentions two fans of vellum or other
material.[66] The Chapel of St. Faith in the crypt of old St.
Paul’s possessed, in 1298, a _muscatorium_ or fly-whip of peacocks’
feathers.[67] There is record of a gift to York Minster, between the
years 1393 and 1413, of a silver-gilt handle for a flabellum.[68] In
1346, Hamo, Bishop of Rochester, presented to the cathedral ‘unum
flabellum de serico cum virga eburnea.’[69] In the inventory of the
Chapel of West Exeter, Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, ‘i. muscifugium de
pecock.’[70] In the enumeration of the valuable effects of the deceased
Queen Isabella, daughter of Philippe le Bel, and consort of Edward
II., the following entry appears: ‘De Capella, Duo flagella pro muscis
fugandis.’[71]
[Illustration:
Portion of Ivory Handle of a Flabellum, French, 12th Cent.
Victoria & Albert Museum.
Lower portion of the same handle.
British Museum.
Ivory Fan Handle, Italian, 16th Cent.
Salting Coll^n.
Portion of an Ivory Fan Handle, Italian, XIV.th Cent.
Victoria & Albert Museum.
Capital or node of a Flabellum.
British Museum.
Portion of handle of a Flabellum, 14th Cent.
Salting Coll^n.]
In England the flabellum was in use even in remote parishes. In the
churchwarden’s accounts at Walderswick, Suffolk, in 1493, is an entry
of IVd. for ‘a bessume of pekoks fethers.’
Although the flabellum is very rarely represented in illuminated
MSS., in the Book of Kells we find miniatures of angels waving these
instruments; in the Gospel of Trèves (eighth century) is a conjoined
evangelistic, symbolic figure holding a small flabellum in one hand
and a eucharistic lance in the other. In a Hiberno-Saxon MS. of the
eighth century a figure of St. Matthew is seen holding in his hand a
flabellum. In the public library at Rouen are two representations of
the use of this instrument; in the one, a thirteenth-century missal,
formerly belonging to the abbey of Jumièges, the fan is held by the
deacon in front of the altar at which the priest officiates; in the
other, it is waved over the head of the priest as he elevates the
wafer: this in a pontifical of the church of Rheims, thirteenth century.
[Illustration: FROM A GREEK PSALTER. (British Museum.)]
A psalter in Greek, British Museum, additional MSS. 19,352, gives
a miniature of an angel waving a large flabellum over the head of
David who is asleep; another instance occurs in a thirteenth-century
Service-Book in the Barberini Library, given by Paciandi.[72]
Representations in printed books are still more rare. In Barclay’s
_Ship of Fools of the World_, 1509, we find, however, a woodcut
illustration of a spectacled bibliophile wearing cap and bells, seated
among his books, holding in his hand a flabellum of feathers, saying:
‘Attamen in magno per me servantur honore:
Pulueris et cariem, plumatis tergo flabellis.’[73]
the word _flabellis_ being here applied to the ordinary hand-brush or
duster.
By the end of the sixteenth century the flabellum had fallen into
complete disuse, its original purpose having been long abandoned or
forgotten, although as late as 1688 Randle Holmes, _Academy of Armory_,
refers to ‘the flap or fann to drive away flies from the chalice.’ Its
sole reminiscence in the west is in the large flabella of peacocks’
feathers carried at solemn festivals in procession before the Pope.
In the Greek Church, the fan is still delivered to the deacon at
ordination as the symbol of his sacred office.
[Illustration: ΡΙΠΙΔΙΟΝ
FROM GOAR.]
From the period of the final break up of the Roman Empire to that of
the Crusades the general use of the fan was discontinued in Europe,
and was probably only adopted by highly placed personages; during
these early periods, however, it was still the religious fly-flap or
flabellum, _d’émouchoir_, and Blondel infers from the circumstance, of
Étienne Boileau not referring to it in his _Livre des Mestiers_ (1200),
that even at this time it no longer served any domestic purpose except
in very rare instances.
The earliest English reference to the fan appears to be the following:—
‘In the thirtieth year of King Edward I., precept was given to Nicholas
Pycot, Chamberlain, of the Guildhall of London that he should cause to
be sold all pledges for any debt whatsoever then in his custody.
‘In an inventory of pledges sold for arrears on the King’s Tallage, 31
Edward I., 1303. One fan (value not stated) taken from Henry Gyleberd
of the ward of Basseshawe for 2s. 8d., which he owes of arrears of the
fifteenth.’[74]
The oldest existing Christian fan, and the most famous of the few fans
of which we have any record during the Middle Ages, is that which has
become identified with Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, the saintly
princess, who possessed a nail of the holy cross which was ultimately
used as a setting to the Iron Crown of the kings of Lombardy. This fan
is preserved as a sacred relic in the Cathedral of Monza near Milan.
Superstition has invested it with magical powers. Pilgrimages are made
to Monza by village maidens, often from a long distance, on a certain
day of the year, as the act of touching it is believed to facilitate
and promote their marriage projects. It is of the cockade shape,
formed of vellum, of the beautiful purple hue we find in contemporary
manuscripts; it is decorated with an alternating diaper of Romanesque
ornament in gold and silver, and round its outer border on either side
is the following inscription in Latin hexameters, which is given by Mr.
W. Burges, _Archæological Journal_, vol. xiv., on the one side:
[+] ‘Ut sis conspectu praeclara et cara venusta,
Hac rogo defendens solem requiesce sub umbra,
Has soror obtutu depictas arte figuras
Praelegeris flavido ut decoreris casta colore.’
and on the reverse, now much obliterated:
‘Pulchrior ut facie dulcis videaris amica
... fervores solis ...
Me retinere manu Ulfeda (?) poscente memento
... splendoris ...’
Mr. Burges has pointed out that the form of the letters of the
inscription, which are Roman with slight Rustic variations, as also the
purple dye, are sufficiently similar to contemporary manuscripts of St.
Augustine of the end of the sixth century.
[Illustration: THE MONZA FLABELLUM. Details.]
The case which accompanies the fan is constructed on the same principle
as the handle of the Tournus flabellum, although less elongated. It is
of wood, covered with silver, the wooden part probably modern, made to
the original shape, with the old silver used again. The length of the
case with handle is 15-1/2 inches, the diameter of the leaf 10 inches.
[Illustration: Fan of Queen Theodolinda, VI. cent.
Cathedral of Monza.]
The side flap was originally fastened to the fan, and drawn round
until it formed a complete circle, as in the instance of the Tournus
flabellum.
With respect to the identity of the original owner of this fan,
although the claim which has been made for its association with Queen
Theodolinda cannot be substantiated, its identification with any
well-defined personage is equally difficult. Who was Ulfeda? Mr. Burges
states with reference to this name that it is by no means the most
legible part of the inscription—that he has been able to discover no
one so named who lived during this period.
M. de Linas points out that the name Ulféda is a variant of the Saxon
Elpheid, which the marvellous cloisonné fibula, exhumed, as is said,
from a Carlovingian sepulchre at Wittislingen (Bavaria), gives under
the softened form of Ufeila.
This Monza fan is not mentioned in an inventory of the treasury in
1275; in that of 1353 the following, however, occurs:
‘Item, fabella, seu orata una argenti facta ad modum unius maze cum
manica ligni ligata in argento.’
M. de Linas infers from the fact of the extremity of the handles being
provided with a ring, that it was _not_ a liturgic fan, and certainly
this circumstance, together with the smallness of its size, would
appear to be a sufficient evidence of its secular use; in any event,
and whatever its original use, this fan, together with that of Tournus,
must be accounted among the most precious relics preserved to us from
that dim and dark, but extremely fascinating period.
The rigid flag-fan, which appears to have been in intermittent use
in Europe from the early centuries of our era, consists of an oblong
parallelogram with a handle fitted to one of its longer sides. These
were made either of plaited straw of various colours, of linen painted
and embroidered, of parchment or vellum, or of silk, woven or
embroidered, often with lozenge-shaped diapering.
The earliest examples remaining to us are Coptic or Saracenic. M.
Robert Forrer in his _Reallexikon_ figures two which were obtained from
the cemetery of Akhmîn, the Greek Panopolis, presumably belonging to
the fourth-sixth century. Of these, one is finely plaited of brown,
red, and black straw, with a representation of four hearts encircling
a cross, the other of a reticulated diapered pattern with a border
of linen. A similar flag-fan of plaited straw appears in the Berlin
Museum: this example, also, is probably Coptic.
M. Charles de Linas, quoting from the life of St. Fulgentius, sixth
century, affirms that the Bishop of Ruspa, whilst he was a monk and
even an abbot, occupied his leisure hours in copying Holy Writ or in
plaiting ‘fly-flaps’ of palm leaves. This same author[75] figures a
flag-fan from an engraved glass vase, exhumed from the catacombs, and
now preserved in the library of the Vatican, representing the Virgin
Mother seated with the infant Saviour on her lap, a deacon behind
agitating a rectangular flabellum fixed in a lateral handle. The zigzag
ornamentation indicates that this, also, was formed of plaited straw.
[Illustration]
In the Observances of the Augustinian Priory at Barnwell, Cambridge,
‘The Fraterer ought to provide mats and rushes to strew the Frater
and the alleys of the Cloister at the Frater door, and frequently to
renew them; in summer to throw flowers, mint, and fennel into the air
to make a sweet odour, and to provide fans.’ ‘Muscatoria in estate
providere.’[76]
[Illustration: Coptic Fans, Akhmîn.
Ethnological Museum. Berlin.]
The most remarkable example, however, of this banner form is on
a diptich of ivory offered by Charles the Bald to the abbey of
Saint-Corneille de Compiègne, and at present in the Cabinet de
Médailles at Paris. On the inferior compartment of the diptich is a
eunuch (?) holding with both hands a flabellum apparently of metal, the
handle long, thick at the end, and engraved with lines representing
masonry; the top in the form of a turret, from which hangs a cord.
The leaf, in all probability embroidered, has a plain broad border
enclosing a laurel wreath.
The banner form of fan became fashionable with the Venetian women
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These were of two kinds:
the one, of a more ornate character, was used by matrons; the other,
_abanico di novia_, of a delicate whiteness, used only by engaged
maidens or the newly married. An example of the latter occurs in the
portrait of the painter’s daughter Lavinia, by Titian, in the Dresden
Gallery, probably painted in 1555. Titian painted this favourite
daughter some eighteen years later; in this portrait she carries a
feather-fan, the sign of Venetian nobility, Titian having been, in the
interval, created a Count Palatine by the Emperor Charles V.
[Illustration: FROM AN IVORY DIPTICH.
(Cabinet de Médailles, Paris.)]
Authentic examples of these flag-fans are exceedingly rare. A richly
embroidered Venetian fan of the sixteenth century is in the collection
of the Grand Duke Frederick of Baden; another, also Italian, has a
large oval medallion with ornaments of silver and brown, and is in the
collection of Mr. G. J. Rosenberg of Karlsruhe; a third, _abanico di
novia_, of white vellum enriched with Venetian lace of the sixteenth
century, is referred to by Blondel as being in the possession of Madame
Achille Jubinal of Paris.
These fans were probably introduced into the western countries of
Europe by the returning Crusaders. They never, apparently, obtained any
great vogue except in Italy; they continued, however, in intermittent
use until the close of the sixteenth century, when, together with
feather, tuft, and cockade fans, they gradually gave place to the
modern folding-fan which had by this time made its appearance in
Portugal from the Far East.
From the fourteenth century onwards, the history of the fan becomes
more clear, and Blondel quotes a number of French inventories in which
the fan figures—that of the Comptesse Mahaut d’Artois (1316), an
émouchoir with silver handle; of Queen Clémence (1328), an émouchoir
of silk brocade; and also in the will or testament of Queen Johanne of
Évreux (1372), a jewelled émouchoir costing five golden francs.[77]
The cockade form, _à la cocarde_, has been in use during all periods
subsequent to its first introduction from the East in the early
centuries of our era. We have already referred at some length to the
cockade flabella at Tournus and Monza. In an inventory of Charles V. of
France, 1380, we read of ‘un esmouchouer rond, qui se ploye, en yvoire,
aux armes de France et de Navarre, à un manche d’ybenus.’[78]
During the fourteenth century, the long-handled flabellum was also in
use, waved by attendants as at Thebes and Rome. In the inventory above
quoted (Charles V.) occurs—‘Trois bannières, ou esmouchoers, de cuir
ouvré, dont les deux ont les manches d’argent dorez.’ ‘Deux bannières
de France, pour esmoucher le Roy quand il est à Table, semées de fleurs
de lys brodées de perles.’[79]
The feather-fan, also, was in use during this reign, as we learn
from a curious entry in a letter of the Queen—alluding to a criminal
prosecution against some manufacturer of spurious coin—‘Le suppliant
trouva d’aventure un esventour de plumes, duquel il esceuta le feu—où
l’on faisoit la ditte fausse monnoye.’[80]
The feather and tuft fans in use from the twelfth to the sixteenth
centuries and later were formed of the plumes of the peacock, the
ostrich, and the paroquet, dyed various colours: the number of the
feathers varied from three to twenty or more, and were arranged so
as to imbricate the plumes in the gradation of their natural growth.
These were set in handles of carved ivory and the more precious metals,
generally silver, and were often richly jewelled, and suspended
from the girdle by a slender chain. Of their cost we have a hint in
Marston’s satires:
‘How can she keepe a lazie serving-man
And buy a hoode and silver-handled fan
With fortie pound?’
Silver was probably the material of the handle of Mistress Bridget’s
fan in the theft of which Falstaff and his Ancient were implicated.
FALSTAFF. And when Mistress Bridget
Lost the handle of her fan, I took’t upon
Mine honour thou hadst it not.
PISTOL. Didst thou not share? hadst thou not fifteen pence?
References to the silver-handled fan occur commonly in old plays:
‘She hath a fan with a short silver handle,
About the length of a barber’s syringe.’
_The Floire_, 1610.
‘All your plate, Vasco, is the silver handle of
Your old prisoner’s fan.’
_Love and Honour_, Sir W. Davenant, 1649.
‘Another he
Her silver handled fan would gladly be.’
In Marston, _Scourge of Villainie_, lib. III. sat. 8.
The above references are to fans of the ordinary sort; the cost of the
more precious fans of history was considerable. Brantôme (_c._ 1590)
refers to the fan of Queen Eleanor with its mirror all ornamented
with precious stones of great value, and also to the new-year’s gift
of Queen Margaret to Queen Louise of Lorraine—a jewelled fan of mother
of pearl of such beauty and richness that it was valued at more than
fifteen hundred crowns,[81] a sum equal to a thousand pounds of our
present money.
The employment of the fan as fire-screen is indicated by the new-year’s
gift to Queen Mary of England in 1556, when she received ‘seven fannes
to kepe the heate of the fyer, of strawe, the one of white silke.’
Queen Elizabeth’s partiality for fans is historic, and it is upon
record that she regarded a fan as a suitable gift for a queen.
Leicester’s new-year’s gift in 1574 is recorded: ‘A fan of white
feathers set in a handle of gold, garnished on one side with two very
fair emeralds, and fully garnished with diamonds and rubies; the other
side garnished with rubies and diamonds, and on each side a white bear
[his cognisance] and two pearls hanging, a lion ramping with a white
muzzled bear at his foot.’
Among the new-year’s gifts, 1588-9:—
‘By the Countess of Bath, a fanne of Swanne downe, with a maze of
gilene Velvet, ymbrodered with seed pearles and a very small chayne
of silver gilte, and in the middest a border on both sides of seed
pearles, sparks of rubyes and emerods, and thereon a monster of gold,
the head and breast mother of pearles.
‘By a Gentleman unknown, a fanne of sundry collored fethers, with a
handle of aggets garnished with silver gilte.’
[Illustration: Feather Hand-Screen, Queen Anne.
Mr L. C. R. Messel.]
In 1589, ‘a fanne of ffethers, white and redd, the handle of golde,
inameled with a halfe moone of mother of perles, within that a halfe
moon garnished with sparks of dyamonds, and a fewe seede perles on
th’ one side, having her majestie’s picture within it: and on the
back-side a device with a crowe over it.’
‘Geven by Sir Frauncis Drake.’
In 1599:—
‘By Mrs. Wingfeilde, mother of the maydes, four ruffes of lawne and a
fanne.’
From a letter of Rowland Whyte to Sir Robert Sydney, December 13, 1595,
we learn that ‘upon Thursday she dined at Kew, my lord keeper’s (Sir
John Packering) house (who lately obtained of her majestie his sute
for £100 a yeare land in fee farm). His intertainment for that meale
was great and exceeding costly. At her first lighting, she had a fine
fanne, with a handle garnished with diamonds.’
It is also recorded that upon her visit to Hawsted Hall, the seat of
Sir Thomas Cullum, she dropped a silver-handled fan into the moat.[82]
In the year 1600, a commission was issued to the Lord High Treasurer,
the Lord Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the
Treasurer of Her Highness’s Chamber, to examine and take a perfect
survey of all ‘robes, garments, and jewels,’ as well within the Court
as at the Tower and Whitehall. In this, no less than twenty-seven fans
appear. The following are enumerated:—
Item, one fanne of white feathers, with a handle of golde, havinge
two snakes wyndinge aboute it, garnished with a ball of diamondes
in the ende, and a crowne on each side within a paire of winges
garnished with diamondes, lackinge 6 diamondes.
Item, one fanne of feather of divers colours, the handle of golde,
with a bare and a ragged staffe on both sides, and a lookinge glass
on thone side.
Item, one handle of golde enamelled, set with small rubies and
emerodes, lackinge 9 stones, with a shipp under saile on thone side.
Item, one handle of christall, garnished with sylver guilte, with a
worde within the handle.
Item, one handle of elitropia (q), garnished with golde, set with
sparks of diamondes, rubies, and sixe small pearls, lackinge one
diamonde.
The feather-fan appears in the following portraits of Queen Elizabeth,
painted and engraved:—
Jesus College: white feather-fan with jewelled handle.
The Newcome picture, now in the National Portrait Gallery: part of a
feather-fan, the portrait being three-quarter length.
Welbeck: a small feather-fan hanging from girdle.
The engraving by Johann Rutlinger: a large feather-fan, the handle
of elaborate design set with jewels. Also pictures at Cobham; Woburn
Abbey; Charlecote Park; Christ Church, Oxford; Penshurst; Powerscourt,
and other places.
The folding-fan was not introduced into this country until the latter
part of the queen’s reign; in the following pictures it appears:—
Jesus College, half length, 1590.
The Ditchley portrait, whole length, 1592; fan attached to the girdle
and held in right hand.
Bodleian Library, portrait attributed to F. Zucharo.
To enumerate the different portraits, painted and engraved, in which
the feather-fan appears, would be an impossible task; sufficient
has been said to indicate the various forms these articles assumed.
Reference may, however, be made to the feather-fan appearing in Renold
Elstracke’s engraving of Anne of Denmark (queen of James I.); this
consisting of three large ostrich plumes set in a jewelled handle.
To the same engraver’s portrait of the Princess Elizabeth, daughter
of King James, a similar feather-fan. Also on a monumental brass,
illustrated in Lipscomb’s _Buckinghamshire_, vol. iii. 291, the wife
of John Pen, Esquire, 1641, appears with an ostrich feather-fan hung
from her girdle. In a portrait attributed to Sebastian del Piombo at
Frankfurt is an extremely ornate feather-fan with a silver handle.
We also obtain an excellent idea of the form these feather-fans assumed
in Italy in the fifteenth century from the engraved design for a
hand-screen by Agostino Carracci (illustrated facing p. 204). This
consists of an admirably designed cartouche enclosing a subject of a
satyr and nymphs bathing; above is a bust of Diana enclosed in a second
cartouche, at the top of which is a head and wings of a Cupid; the
whole is surmounted by a tuft of ostrich feathers. On the same plate
are three other medallions, Neptune and Minerva, a head of Mars, and
the Graces, these latter either intended as alternative subjects or for
introduction at the back of the fan. The engraving is signed ‘Agust.
Carazza Inv. e fe.’
The feather-fan was used by both sexes, as we learn from Bishop Hall,
describing a fashionable gallant:
‘When a plum’d fan may shade thy _chalked_ face,
And lawny strips thy naked bosom grace.’
An ostrich-plume _folded_ fan is given in a miniature of Mademoiselle
D’Hautefort in the cabinet of M. de la Mésangère. This consists of ten
sticks each with a single feather attached, dyed alternatively yellow
and blue.
Feather-fans continued in general use until the time of Vandyck and
later, and are in evidence in several portraits by this master;
indeed the use of the tuft- and feather-fan has never been completely
abandoned, the article having remained in intermittent use even to the
present day.
None of these ancient feather-fans exist in their complete form, from
the perishable nature of the ostrich plume, which, in the lapse of
time, crumbles to fragments, and from this circumstance the remarkable
feather hand-screen in the possession of Mr. Messel is of the highest
interest.
A few handles, however, are to be found in the various collections,
both public and private. A pretty ivory handle of a sixteenth-century
Italian feather-fan is in the Salting collection, at present at South
Kensington. This is delicately carved with two half-length female
figures issuing from acanthus-leaved ornament, and holding a festoon
of drapery, a mask of Cupid above. Near the handle end are two winged
terminal monsters.
The head of an ivory-fan handle, also Italian of the same period, is
in the South Kensington collection: this has a female terminal (head
restored) and two dolphins forming the top, two masks on either side,
with other terminals and cornucopiæ.
[Illustration: GHOST FAN. Malay Archipelago
(Ethnological Museum, Berlin.)]
[Illustration: Italian Fan, cut vellum mount. finely painted with
miniatures, end of 17th Cent., stick ivory, of later date.
Mr. L. C. R. Messel.]