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.

Many evidences of its early adoption by the Latin Church are extant. Moschus (Prat. Spirituale, § 150) cites an occurrence showing its employment SILVER PROCESSIONAL FLABELLUM
(From Butler.) 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.

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:—

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.

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

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 FROM A GREEK PSALTER.
(British Museum.) 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.

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:

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 FROM GOAR 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.

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:

and on the reverse, now much obliterated:

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.

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.

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 author75 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.

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

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 FROM AN IVORY DIPTICH.
(Cabinet de MÉdailles, Paris.) 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.

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:

Silver was probably the material of the handle of Mistress Bridget’s fan in the theft of which Falstaff and his Ancient were implicated.

References to the silver-handled fan occur commonly in old plays:

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.’

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:

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.