simple and well-known implement employed to produce coolness by agitating the air.
Upwards of 3000 years ago the artist of ancient Egypt painted the fan on the walls of the tombs at Thebes, where the Pharaoh sits surrounded by his fan-bearers. These officers acted as generals or marshals, using their fans as standards in war, and in peace they assisted the Pharaoh in the temple, and waved their variegated fans both to produce a cooling breeze, and to guard the sacred offerings from the contamination of noxious insects.
The fan is mentioned by Euripides, and its Grecian forms were far more beautiful than the Egyptian. The wings of a bird joined laterally and attached to a slender handle formed the simple yet graceful fan of the Priest of Isis, when Isis became a Grecian deity. It was sometimes formed of feathers of different lengths, spread out in the form of a semicircle, but pointed at the top. This fan, the precise type of the state-fan of India and China of the present day, was waved by a female slave.
The fan is mentioned by Terence and Ovid; and was termed indifferently "labellum" or "muscariun." When the Romans were at meals, it was the duty of certain slaves, when the weather was warm, to cool the room with fans and to drive away the flies.
The modern Greek church places a fan in the hands of its deacons to guard the officiating priest and the elements from desecration.
When the fan was brought to France by Catherine de' Medecis, it was so constructed that it could be folded in the manner of those used in the present day. Fans in the luxurious reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., shone with gilding and gems, and were ornamented with the pictures of Boucher. and Watteau. At that time no toilet was esteemed complete without a fan, the cost of which was frequently as high as from L12 to L15 sterling.
In fan-making the Chinese and French are the great rivals, and may be said to monopolise the supply of the whole world. In the lacquered fans the superiority of the natives of China is fully admitted. These are unrivalled both in lowness of price and in originality of design, brilliancy of colouring, and in general correctness of workmanship. In China the manufacture of fans is almost entirely confined to Canton, Southchou, Hang-tchoo, and Nankin. The fans of ivory and bone, and of feathers, are made exclusively for exportation to Europe or America. Those used by the Chinese are of bamboo, polished or japanned, and covered with paper. They are sold at from 10d. to 1s. 6d. per dozen, according to the quality of the frame and the design of the leaf.
In France fan-making has arrived at a high degree of perfection, and presents a remarkable instance of the subdivision of labour: not less than about twenty different operations, performed by as many pairs of hands, are necessary to the production of a fan which sells for less than one half-penny. The number of fan-makers, or éventailistes, in Paris in 1827 was 15, who employed 1010 workmen (344 men, 500 women, and 166 children), and sold about L40,420 worth of fans. In 1847, there were 122 fan-makers, comprising chamber-masters as mounters, feuillistes, painters, and colourists. The value of the fans made was L110,000. These masters employed 675 workpeople (262 men, 264 women, 29 youths, and 20 girls). The workmen on the average can earn 3s. and the women 1s. 8d. per day. Some small fans are sold at a price as low as 5d. per dozen.—(Reports of the Juries on the Works of Industry at the Exhibition, 1851.)