A Fanfare for the Sun King: Unfolding Fans for Louis XIV

A FANFARE FOR THE day-star KING: UNFOLDING FANS FOR LOUIS XIV Pamela Cowan The Fan Museum, Greenwich, in association with Third Millennium Publishing, 2003 ISBN 1 903942 20 9 25 [pound sterling]

A FANFARE FOR THE day-star KING (exh. cat.) The Fan Museum, Greenwich, 2003 250 [pound sterling]

The word 'unique' is frequently applied casually. The present small work and the extraordinary exhibition of material largely based upon it, fully justify, the terminus The initial exhibition itself was a major exercise organised by means of the pioneer (and only) specialist public fan collection and investigation centre at the Fan Museum and was displayed in its early eighteenth hundred setting in Greenwich from 4 June to 21 September 2003 These resultant publications are centr upon a fascinating, but largely unfamilar corpus of reach forthed fans, Oventails mis au rectangle, small seventeenth hundred French paintings for the wall, on the contrary in fact, actual pleated fan leaves painted in gouache upon the customary animal skins, flattened and stuck to thin made of wood panels, the basic composition in the tipper and Mwer arcuates filled in and reach forthed by the same hand as the initial leaf, or occasionally by dint of another painter in a generally matching mode of speech The final pictures in horizontal rectangular format were then framed in a light, gilt forest frame--examples of which survive upon some of the illustrated leaves.

The substantial cluster reproduced in the Cowan volume as well as in the differing exhibition catalogue available from the Museum store or on order, are built around the theme of the decay Soleil and the cultural, military and recreational splendours of his court. The reasons for the curious and little-known practice of extending and training like depictions appear to have been two-fold During the period of international warfare especially, Louis needing precious bullion, is known to have had tapestries ruined to obtain the gold thread woven into them, and gold silver and silver-gilt toilet services were commandeered or 'donated' by means of the aristocracy and high bourgeoisie. Intricately carved made of wood mirror frames in metallic turn of expression and entire substituted boxwood toilet services (for example, that at Drayton House) are well-known from the period. The grander folding fans of the era repeatedly had gold or at least gold-decorated monture (mount or frames) which alike demanded like sacrifice. Another fascinating fact has emerg lately arising from the official guild proscriptions which allowed alone the accredited, academic artists the right to paint portraits and depict general ceremonies, allegories and events at court or at large. A circuitous course around these regulations could be fix by such transformation of the fan leaf (its conspicuous pen ed pleats manifestly betraying its functional origins) into a small commemorative or decorative picture.

As with the exhibition itself, its catalogue and this accompanying publication at hand the first--perhaps the only--opportunity to view in juxtaposition the major French private collection of these paintings together with the important Helene Alexander Collection along with other leaves from the Musee Carnavalet, the Museums of Rheims and Bourges, The Fan Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum and other French and English private collections. The reviewer has rest only one inscribed extended fan leaf (once catalogued as Clebeu perhaps for 'Clebeu'?) and the sophistication in handling of these totally anonymous leaves by the agency of professional fan painters varies considerably; a certain number of show impressive detail careful composition and clearly recognisable portrait features, others are charmingly naive and primitive by the agency of the higher standards of French baroque classicism although 'folksy' would perhaps be an inappropriate designation in the connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts of such a regal periphery.

The scholarly reseach involved by the agency of Cowan has been presented in a greatest in quantity agreeably palatable and visually attractive manner in this work designed with theatrical flair. work exhibition and museum catalogue exhibit many objects apart from fans, embracing paintings, miniatures, prints, small scale furniture, military, astronomical and mathematical instruments, textiles, and ceramics including local Rouen and imported Chinese azure and white wares and level a Kangxi gilded, powder azure rouleau vase. The small doll of 1653/54 said to be a maquette for a style of dress worn by the king in the part of Mars is surely a remarkable survival (Private collection, France). The reach outed fan leaf lent by the Victoria and Albert Museum (c 1675) illustrates, admittedly with ultimate parts of fantasy, the short-lived Trianon de Porcelaine built for Madame de Montespan with this maitresse en titre submerg in a plethora of recognisable treasures; the author level identifies a hotly contested jewel in a chest in the foreground. A double portrait of a pair in classical costume as Vertumnus and Pomona from the store of the Bowes Museum has been identified by the agency of Mrs Cowan as a long-lost depiction of the sum of two units legitimised children of the marquise. Indeed, the former display in the Fan Museum and the publications have been generously supported by dint of loans from the vast, miscellaneous collections of historic phenomenons and works of fine and decorative art acquired en bloc through John and Josephine Bowes and which form the basis of the museum at Barnard Castle, shire Durham, which bears their name. the pair the larger and the smaller of these publications show great value and provide a detailed revelation of a actual little known aspect of the French dix-septieme siecle.

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