“…the fan is either a prude or a coquette, according to the nature of the person who bears it.” – Article from The Queen, 1864

This hand-painted silk and wood fan would have been considered the height of late Victorian fashion. For the Victorian woman, fans were a fashion accessory, of course, but with all things Victorian, they held a much deeper symbolism. Advice columns of the day instructed women to use the fan to indicated their inner character and virtue, giving them an active role in portraying themselves in society and in courtship. There were flutters of anger, modesty, merriment, and romance. Using the language of the fan was a delicate art and meant the difference between being viewed as a flirt or an appropriately modest and passive woman. An article from The Illustrated London News suggests that women use fans to “move the air and cool themselves but also to express their sentiments.” Fans were to be used as the physical and metaphysical extension of a woman’s delicate hand and genteel mind. 

The fan industry in Great Britain, where this fan was made, was also uniquely female. Fans entered into fashionable English society later than continental Europe, taking hold in the fashion industry in the earliest days of the eighteenth century. In 1709, the Worshipful Company of Fan Makers was established and would lead the production of fans and their exposition into the nineteenth century. The delicate task of fan making required a high level of skill to handle the high-end materials like ivory, tortoiseshell, silk, lace, mother of pearl, wood, and bone. Primarily the job of cutting the pieces that assembled a fan was reserved for men until 1859 when machinery replaced the hand-piecing jobs. Women, however, took over the role of designing and painting fans and became the featured exhibitionist during the Worshipful Company of Fan Makers three expositions in 1877, 1889, and 1890. Women took home the highest prizes for their fan designs. During the International Exhibition of 1871, Queen Victoria herself offered a £ 40 prize “for the best fan exhibited by a lady artist or artists.” 

Black silk taffeta fan with hand-painted with floral sprays English, c. 1880 – 1890 Trisler-Pentz Collection of the Star-Spangled Banner Flag House, FH1930.2.2a