Object Number: TA3389

Collection: Social History

Object Name: fan, folding

Description: Paper folding fan. Narrow paper leaf (reverse of chicken skin). Printed, painted and gilded: pierced and gilded mother of pearl sticks and guards. Obverse lithograph with rustic scene of courtly figures in 19th century costume; drawing, reading and conversing. Each end of leaf painted and gilded with bouquets of flowers and scrolls. Reverse painted and gilded with delicate flower sprays, a central cartouche bearing two birds. Sticks and guards decorated with scrolls, flowers, lovebirds and musical trophies. Central cartouche of a family picking flowers, figures against a shimmer of mother of pearl ground. Pivot of steel and brass, shaped and textured brass hanger. Lithograph painted at left "Im _ and oacomm" (Perhaps "Imhrime") part obscured by gilding.