[Illustration: ‘Cabriolet’ Fan, stick ivory, carved and painted.
The fine example illustrated from the collection of Lady Bristol has nine cabriolets, two on the larger and three on the smaller paper mounts, two on the brins, and two on the panaches. The upper portion of the ivory stick is carved with three series of three figures enclosed in an ornamental setting, and one on each panache, with ‘goldfish’ inlay. The lower portion has two large cartouches of figure subjects also with ‘goldfish’ inlay, and a smaller one painted, the whole of the stick elaborately painted and gilt. A similar fan is in the possession of the Comtesse de Chambrun, Paris, and was exhibited at South Kensington in 1870.
Two examples of the smaller variety are given from the collections of Lady Northcliffe and Lady Bristol, similar in general character, but presenting slight differences in detail. On each of these fans only one cabriolet appears, painted decoration taking the place of the rich carving and gilding on the stick of the larger fan.
Towards the end of the reign of Louis XV. the fan industry suffered a temporary relapse: the fashion for the cheaper printed fans, and also for the importations from the East, spread even to the aristocrats. We read of a fashionable jeweller at this period undertaking to supply to La Pompadour a dozen fans direct from Nankin for the insignificant sum of seventy-two livres. An interesting design for a fan in the Hennin collection (Bibliothèque Nationale) is probably intended as an effort to revive interest in the more expensive fans,[112] and is inscribed, ‘Combat du terrible torreau représenté par des enfants en présence de Sa Majesté Louis XV., roi de France et de Navarre.’ This was a spectacle devised for the king’s amusement in 1760. In an enclosure, a bull-fight, in which the actors are children, is taking place before a large concourse of spectators, including the king and queen; on the left are trumpeters and other figures, on the right is a figure holding three hounds in leash.
La Pompadour is glorified on a skin mount in the collection of Mrs. Bruce Johnston; the subject being ‘hommages’ offered by Church, State, Literature, Art and Music at the altar of madame, who appears as Venus seated on a raised throne in the centre of the composition, her car and doves in the background. A Cupid strikes at her bosom with his arrow, others dance to the music of a mandoline, while another, crowned with a laurel wreath, rides on the back of the French Eagle. This was probably painted by one of the numerous artists employed by madame, and never mounted. (Illustrated facing p. 6.)