- Collection type
- Object
- Description
- Fan with mirror attached.
- Geographical reference
- Cultural groups
- English
- Date / Period
- Date made: 1800-1850
- Date collected
- By 1930
- Acquisition information
- Donated: 1930
- Materials and processes
- Material Silk Textile Animal, Material Animal Ivory Tooth, Process Woven
- Dimensions
- Length 115 mm closed, Length 220 mm tassel
- Object numbers
- Accession number: 1930.36.2
- Research and responses
Phone conversation between Helen Hales (PRM) with Helene Alexander of the Fan Museum on 15 December 2010: this type of fan, regardless of the mirror, is known as a 'palmette' or 'palmetto' due to the fabric leaf- or petal-like segments (as opposed to a regular folding fan). In America, these types of fans were also known as 'Jenny Lind fans' as they were the hallmark of the 19th-century opera singer Jenny Lind, known as the 'Swedish Nightingale'. These types of fans appeared around the 1850s-60s and survived in various forms throughout the art nouveau period into the early 20th century. Fans with integral mirrors, designed so you could see what was going on behind you - or a spy-hole to keep an eye on goings-on inconspicuously in front of you - were thought to have been introduced in the 18th century although the earliest one she [Helene Alexander] has seen dates to around 1840. Note that the guard stick should always be opened to the right, since fans were carried in the right hand and a mirror on a stick on the left would impede the view over the shoulder. The material used for the sticks may be bone rather than ivory and the silk palmettes may be made of recycled silk. Overall, this is not a tremendously well-made example although the 'spangles' (star sequins) on the leaves offer a pretty and not uncommon style of patterning. This fan may date to the late 1860s or 1870s, after which time fans generally became much larger. [HH 15/12/2010]
Search terms: Fan, Toilet, Mirror, Toilet Article