THE LANGUAGE OF FANS ... by Susan Stokes-Chapman

It exercises the office of the zephyrs, and cools the glowing breast. It saves the blush of modesty by showing all we wish to see, yet hiding all that we desire to conceal. It serves the purpose of a mask, covering the face that would remain unknown. It keeps off the rude beams of the uncourtly sun ... or from the fiercest ravage saves the brilliant eye and blooming cheek. It hides bad teeth, malicious smiles and frowns of discontent; stands as a screen before the secret whisper of malicious scandal; expresses the caprices of the heart, nay sometimes even speaks; in a word it has a thousand admirable qualities, and may justly be entitled one of the nobelest inventions of the human mind. 

Extract from: The Grand Magazine, London, November 1760

A fan is a delightful companion in warm weather or when confined to a stuffy room, but according to The Grand Magazine, its purpose extended far beyond mere cooling. It served as the perfect shield for a woman wishing to conceal herself — whether out of shyness, to mask less-than-perfect breath or teeth, or simply to avoid unwanted attention. Beyond this, the fan was a powerful instrument of silent communication, allowing a lady to convey her thoughts without uttering a single word.

In the Spectator of 27 June 1711, Joseph Addison remarked that “women are armed with fans, as men are with swords,” a sharp observation hinting at the fan’s potential as a weapon against unwanted suitors. For example, placing the fan against the left ear signaled a desire to be rid of a persistent admirer; carrying it in the right hand suggested the suitor was overly eager; and drawing the fan briskly through her hand delivered the unequivocal message, “I hate you.”

Yet, the fan was also a tool of flirtation and affection. Making eye contact while holding the fan in the left hand in front of the face expressed interest in an acquaintance, while pressing the fan’s handle to the lips conveyed a bold invitation: “kiss me.”

These discreet gestures collectively became known as The Language of Fans — a fascinating, silent code that added an intriguing dimension to social interaction in the Georgian era.

Lady Holding a Fan by Francesco Bartolozzi

Yet, the likelihood of a gentleman truly mastering this intricate vocabulary of fan gestures was slim. After all, there were over two dozen distinct motions and signals to learn. It was the Parisian fan maker Jean-Pierre Duvelleroy who took it upon himself to unveil this secret language. In 1827, he published a detailed leaflet outlining the etiquette of fan use, which quickly gained widespread popularity.

The idea is undeniably romantic, the notion of The Language of Fans. However, the less glamorous reality was that Duvelleroy’s true aim was to revive flagging fan sales following their decline after the French Revolution. Evidently, his clever marketing gambit succeeded, as he later became a supplier of fans to Queen Victoria herself.

  

Artists Unknown

Still, it might be a delightful challenge to master this secret code should you ever find yourself wielding a fan at a formal gathering, be it a Jane Austen re-enactment or a Bridgerton-themed ball. Just be careful not to accidentally call someone cruel or proclaim an engagement that doesn’t exist!

If you have a fascination with 18th and 19th-century fans, The Fan Museum is an absolute must-visit. There, you can explore an exquisite collection showcasing fans of every shape and style, delicately carved from ivory and tortoiseshell, with leaves crafted from silk and gauze, and adorned with intricate embroidery or hand-painted designs.

The museum also offers insights into the traditional methods of fan-making — knowledge that proved invaluable when I wrote the short story The Winter Spirits. Below are just a few of my favourite fans, which I photographed during my visit in August 2023:

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My short story 'Widow's Walk' (set in the Georgian period) featuring a troubled fan maker, can be found within The Winter Spirits, published in hardback October 2023, and out later this year in paperback. You can order a copy by clicking the image below:

www.susanstokeschapman.com

Instagram: @SStokesChapman

Cabinet of Curiosities by Charlotte Wightwick - feeling hot, hot, hot

Typical. I started writing this article a couple of days ago, at 5.30am after yet another sticky, close night. In the end I gave up trying to sleep and decided to do something useful instead. It is now Sunday morning and the weather is cool and grey and rainy, making this one of the most poorly timed blog posts ever.

But all is not lost. According to my phone, the heat is coming back. So, for those of you who love a heatwave - and those like me who just want it to be 20 degrees and cloudy LIKE NORMAL FOR JULY IN BRITAIN - here’s a quick overview of a few ways people have kept cool through history. At the end I’ll pick my favourite to go into this month’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

1. Caves. Ok, so they won’t fit into my cabinet, but many caves are Nice Cool Places. On holiday in Sicily this year, this was brought home to me in two different ways. The first was that my bedroom in our rented villa was one! It was by far the coolest (in both sense of the word) room in the house and despite the temperatures being well into in the 30s during the day, I slept well and long every night (and sometimes for afternoon naps too).

My bedroom in Modica, Sicily, 

always cool and comfortable! 

Photo: C Wightwick

We also visited the Cava d’Ispica, a series of caves which were inhabited from prehistoric times through to the middle ages. Obvious evidence of inhabitation ranged from soot markings, to stone-cut tombs, shelves and niches for lighting or possessions and the remnants of medieval frescos – a really stunning landscape detailing the different ways that people shape and use the natural world around them.

Cava d'Ispica, Sicily. 

Photo: C Wightwick

2. Air-con. Yup, it existed prior to electricity. Wealthy Romans, for example, pumped cold water through the walls of their houses in the summer months to keep things cool. And of course the Romans also had the Frigidarium at the Baths to plunge into…

3. Fans. So this is where the photos get really pretty. Used across different cultures for thousands of years (evidence dates from C4th BC in Greece and C2nd BC in China, for example), fans became a major fashion accessory in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Disappointingly though, the so-called ‘language of the fans’ is, apparently, just a myth (or rather a later marketing ploy). While I’m normally one for historical accuracy in my fiction, please don’t let that put you off, romance writers! 

C18th hand fan, showing Hector's 

farewell to Andromache, 

Victoria & Albert Museum London 

4. Back to Sicily. I seem inexplicably not to have taken any photos of the frankly vast quantity of gelato I consumed on holiday earlier this year (I can’t imagine why that would be) so you’ll have to imagine it. Ice cream. Mmm. Again existing in some form (at least for royalty) for thousands of years, it seems to have developed in Europe into what we would recognise as ice-cream in around about the C16th and was gradually popularised as ice houses and then refrigeration became more available.

So – my winner? Well, I can’t fit my bed-cave into even my imaginary Cabinet of Curiosities, so it will have to be a fan. Practical and pretty – it can act as a reminder of this summer’s heat wave long after we’re shivering in our beds and longing for summer again…

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE (FITZWILLIAM) MUSEUM by Adèle Geras

This is the faccade of a part of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Almost the first thing I did when we moved to this city in 2010 was to join the Friends of the Fitzwilliam. The museum is known as 'a collection of collections' and anyone who's ever been there will know that it's a huge depository of all things interesting and beautiful.

The Museum puts on very good  exhibitions. TREASURED POSSESSIONS was recently a great favourite with all who visited and I've loved Edmund de Waal ceramics, water colours, art from China and Japan and many, many other shows. 

The Friends are a wonderful organisation. I'm told that the Fitzwilliam was the first museum to have such a group attached to it and that it was founded in 1909. I had a reason for joining quite separate from supporting my local museum.  The Friends regularly take trips to great stately homes and other interesting places and because I don't drive, I'm always happy to join these outings. I've seen some glorious places over the last five years.

But as well as jaunts and outings, the Fitz does a great job of putting on workshops for the general public, including children and also lays on Study mornings for the Friends from time to time. I couldn't resist the poster advertising the Flowers and Fans study morning in June and it turned out to be a most enjoyable and fascinating occasion.

First things first: coffee and refreshments in the Meeting Room, provided by the Friends' committee. Here are two photos, which don't show the lively chat and friendly faces of the people attending.

On the morning we were there, the Museum had taken delivery of a boxes and boxes of 18th and 19th century fans, sent from Christie's the auction house. We weren't allowed to take photos of those because they were so new that they hadn't even been 'checked in' so to speak. It was a privilege to hear Vicky, Eleanor and Amy telling us about them and the photos you see of fans here are from the permanent collection, taken later on after the Study Morning was over. I've put them in  mainly as decoration to break up the text,  and didn't even take down details of their provenance.

I've adored fans from a very early age. I can remember folding pieces of paper into a kind of concertina to make a rudimentary fan of my own, but real fans, fans made of ivory or feathers or silk painted with flowers were a part of my childhood. My mother liked fans and had a few which I was allowed to play with when I dressed up. I suspect that the ones I was enjoying were past their best.

Fans were at their most fashionable during the 18th century. French Huguenot fan makers came over to London and flourished there. Ladies in England took to them with great gusto and there was a huge variety of patterns and pictures to choose from. The Language of Fans is well known. Joseph Addison,  founder of the Spectator magazine, wrote "Women are armed with fans as men with swords and sometimes do more execution with them." 

There was a huge variety of decorations available to the fan designer. Flowers, Chinoiserie, figures from mythology: anything that could be depicted on a fan was depicted. Some of the ornamentation was quite risqué. One that had been unpacked on the morning we were there was printed all over with verses.  It was called The Ladies' Bill of Fare and described the various men you could hope to snare. I wrote down one  of the quatrains:

"To plague and please all womankind
Here's gallants sure aplenty.
Chuse then a beau to suit your mind
Or change till one content ye!"

After the fans, we went through the Museum and into one of the back rooms; the kind of place which is so fascinating to be in that the things you're looking at are only part of the fun. Again, we weren't allowed to photograph anything, but imagine a room with many windows and rows and rows of display drawers and books and files, which have to be taken out in order to be viewed. We were looking at the flower paintings in the collection and all I have in my notebook now is the names of the artists. Some, like Redouté are well-known and many more are less famous: Jean Baptiste Pillement, Maria Sybilla Merian,  Antoine de Pinet, Bosschaert, Mary Moser and many others.  Henry Broughton, Lord Fairhaven was an important collector of flower drawings and paintings and his collection is here in  the Fitzwilliam. Here is a painting (not in the Fitzwilliam)  by Bosschaert: 

The Cambridge Botanic Gardens are just up the road from the Fitzwilliam and those are full of beautiful plants and flowers. Here was an echo of  the natural world.  In this room we found a garden on paper, held in albums so that the colour of each bloom is preserved in the best possible conditions.  Flower painting was an art that very many young ladies took up as a hobby and this is one reason why there are so many accomplished paintings of this kind.


The Fitzwilliam Museum is a real treasure house and I do urge anyone who is within easy reach of Cambridge to come and visit. You are sure to find a collection among the collections which will suit you.  There really is something for everyone within its walls.  It's shut on Mondays but any other day it makes a terrific place to visit. And though you won't get Friends' brownies when you visit, the Café  and shop are both superb.

I had a notebook with me that day and I'm going to end with a quotation I wrote down carelessly without recording the name of the person who wrote it.  I don't know exactly why I love this so much, but I do, so these are the words I will leave you with. 
"La couleur bleu n'existe que dans la tête du peintre." (The colour blue only exists in the painter's head.)