Crate loads were produced in Canton (now called Guangzhou) China and shipped back by Western merchants to Europe and America where they were an important fashion accessory for ladies in the nineteenth century.
Mandarin Fans For Export
These ‘Mandarin fans’ were produced in large quantities, so-called because they showed figures of mandarins and their consorts with tiny painted ivory faces and cut-and-pasted coloured silk robes. Every middle and upper class lady had to have one, for they showed a world where few would venture. Equally popular was the brise fan carved and pierced in many materials, including ivory, bone, mother of pearl, enamelled silver or gold, tortoiseshell, and lacquer.
Oval and Round (Pien Mien), Folding and Painted Fans
The Chinese had carried fans for thousands of years, not just to cool the air, but also to gesticulate and emphasise a point. The earliest, recorded as far back as the Shang dynasty (1600c-1100c BC), were made of pheasant or peacock feathers.
Rigid round or oval fans called pien mien were popular in the Tang (618-906) dynasty, made of bamboo or ivory with silk stretched across the frame and embroidered or painted. Some survive from the 19th century, made of silk stretched across a wooden frame. The silk would be embroidered with a design, for example of two cranes surrounded by bamboo and flowers, signifying long life and beauty.
Fans Made of Bone, Ivory and Sandalwood
During the Song dynasty, folding fans made of horn, bone, ivory and sandalwood were introduced into China from Japan, via Korea, and by the early fifteenth century had become very fashionable for their convenience in carrying. A wealthy man would carry his fan in a case attached to his girdle or tucked into the top of his boots, while a coolie would keep it in his stocking top, or down the back of the neck of his jacket.
Fans were frequently used by the literati as a means of artistic expression and were inscribed with calligraphy and paintings. Many famous Chinese artists painted landscapes, flowers, birds or insects on paper to be made into fans. Folding paper fans for men were often inscribed with calligraphy and paintings as a means of artistic and scholarly expression.
Rigid fans in an elongated oval shape, of magpie or egret feathers, were popular at the end of the nineteenth century, and some older men still carry them today in China and Hong Kong.
Folding Paper Fans
Paper fans had sticks made of thin slivers of bamboo or scented woods such as camphor, cedar or sandalwood to sweeten the air. A man's paper folding fan could have between 20 and 30 sticks. One exquisite fan was found in an antique shop in Beijing in tortoiseshell brise made for an official with 21 sticks (see pictured).
According to the tiny engraved inscription, it was presented "from your humble concubine with best wishes" to her husband Mou Jia Wei, in the thirtieth year of the reign of Guangxu, in the ninth month (1904). Four larger characters denote "In the quiet of the hermitage, one feels pure pleasure".
So check out antique dealers around the world, markets in China, and auction houses in London and New York. One or more of these little treasures are sure to turn up.
Valery Garrett - I was born in England but I’ve lived in Hong Kong for over thirty years. At first I worked as a fashion designer for some large ...
