THE XVIII CENTURY:  WHEN ALSO TO PLAY WAS AN ART

  XVIII century needs a further appointment, being the period when the fan reached the maximum splendour; must, jewel in the able craftsmen and artists’ hands, in these hundred years it was enriched and modified till to become a very precious toy in the gallant and quality ladies’ hands.

The fan we speak about in this occasion is about 1775 and very rare. Of French manufacture,(such as all the finest of 1700), it’s called “articulated”. The leaf is double, of embroidered silk with paillettes and golden thread, and hand-painted with a central medallion depicting a tender sentimental scene and other decorations with amorini, paradise-birds, fruits: all attributes exalting love.

Surely it was an engagement or anniversary gift. The sticks are of pierced and carved ivory with silver leaf applied. The buttons (the covering point of the rivet) have crystals setted.

So, which is its peculiarity? On the two guard sticks (the principal sticks) there are two medallions covered with glass, each one containing a small automaton, whose arms work thanks to a small lever placed just lower.

On a side a hunter shoulders the gun, watched by his little dog; on the other, a lady smells a bouquet. Besides, on the two guard sticks there are some small glass tubes containing cotton-wool, which were filled up with perfume through the pierced ivory grill placed just up the small lever.The examples of this type are really very few, and the reasons are easily imaginable: the extreme fragility of the mechanism, and surely the price, at that time too, not exactly moderate….

Owning these objects today is a privilege. Beyond the feeling which should inspire everyone surrounds himself with antique objects, I think that  the possibility to handle, to observe, to care such private accessories must always invite us to a deep respect for life and memory of the past owners.To care antique objects, of our family or not, impose a duty of historic transmission on us, but give us also the joy to make eternal remote feelings, to crystallize happy events or not, whose perhaps we don’t know the correct importance, but which surely form part of our daily life.