Happy Friday everyone!
This week’s fan is from 1912. Look at those feathers!
Brittaya
Fan-tastic Fridays
Happy Friday lovely readers!
This week we have a lovely feather fan from the 1880’s! Can you just imagine fanning yourself with this? It looks absolutely luxurious.
Wishing you all the very best on the weekend!
Brittaya
It’s time for another Fantastic Friday Post! I hope your weekend is off to a good start! Today’s beautiful hand painted fan is from the 1890’s. It’s very delicate as you can see and unfortunately some of the lace has deteriorated. Still it was too beautiful to not be shared with you. Enjoy!
Brittaya
Happy New Year everyone!
I hope that you all had a lovely time ringing in the New Year. To help start your year off with some real beauty from the past, I give you this lovely lacy black fan, circa 1880. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Be sure to take a closer look at the details!
-Britt
Check out the gorgeous butterflies on this week’s beautiful hand painted fan from 1890-1900.
Happy Friday!
This week’s fan from 1900 features a Spanish theme, with a lovely flamenco dance scene and a toreador.
I hope your Friday is fan-tastic!
Brittaya
This gorgeous fan is from 1910, and features hand sewn sequins and lace as well as a beautiful painted scene. How fancy!
Be sure to click on it to check out the details.
Hope your Friday is Fan-tastic!
Brittaya
I’ve come up with a new feature to entertain you dear readers, and I do hope you will enjoy it. The CMC has a wonderful collection of hand fans dating back to the 1800’s and I’m excited to share some of these brilliant artifacts with you. First however, we must begin with a brief history of the hand fan.
Archaeological evidence dates fans back to at least 4000 years ago in Egypt. They have been used throughout the centuries as a means of cooling oneself, as well as showing status, accenting an outfit, and also for coquettish purposes. There is some debate over the existence of a “fan language” that women used throughout the 18th and 19th century to indicate to a suitor if she may have been interested in his advances. Whether this is true or not, fans were an indispensable fashion accessory in the Victorian times. There were fans for day time use, fans for fancy balls, fans for weddings, fans for mourning and everything in between. Fans have been made of all manner of materials as well. In our collection we have lace fans, feather fans, fabric fans, wooden fans, ornate beaded fans, hand painted fans, plastic fans, paper fans, and more. Later on in the 20th century businesses began to use fans as a means of advertising and would print their business information or logo onto a fan to hand out for free to people at special events. A clever way to advertise on a hot day no?
And now that you know a little more about fans, I’ll start you off with one from our collection. This gorgeous flower painted fan is from 1900-1910, a true Edwardian gem. Be sure to click on the photos to enlarge them so you can get a good look at the detailing!
Brittaya
References & Further Reading:
(please note the following links are not associated with the CMC in any way.)
http://www.allhandfans.com/handfans/levels/language_of_the_fan.htm
https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/tag/language-of-the-fan/
