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

A FANFARE FOR THE SUN 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 [pounds sterling]

A FANFARE FOR THE SUN KING (exh. cat.) The Fan Museum, Greenwich, 2003, 2.50 [pounds sterling]

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

The substantial group reproduced in the Cowan book, as well as in the differing exhibition catalogue available from the Museum shop, or on order, are built around the theme of the Rot Soleil and the cultural, military and recreational splendours of his court. The reasons for the curious and little-known practice of extending and training such depictions appear to have been two-fold. During the period of international warfare especially, Louis needing precious bullion, is known to have had tapestries destroyed to obtain the gold thread woven into them, and gold, silver and silver-gilt toilet services were commandeered or 'donated' by the aristocracy and high bourgeoisie. Intricately carved wooden mirror frames in metallic style, 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 often had gold or at least gold-decorated montures (mounts or frames) which alike demanded such sacrifice. Another fascinating fact has emerged recently arising from the official guild proscriptions which allowed only the accredited, academic artists the right to paint portraits and depict current ceremonies, allegories and events at court or at large. A circuitous route around these regulations could be found by such transformation of the fan leaf (its conspicuous folded pleats manifestly betraying its functional origins) into a small commemorative or decorative picture.

As with the exhibition itself, its catalogue and this accompanying publication present 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 found only one inscribed extended fan leaf (once catalogued as Clebeu perhaps for 'Clebeu'?) and the sophistication in handling of these totally anonymous leaves by professional fan painters varies considerably; some show impressive detail careful composition and clearly recognisable portrait features, others are charmingly naive and primitive by the higher standards of French baroque classicism although 'folksy' would perhaps be an inappropriate designation in the context of such a regal periphery.

The scholarly reseach involved by Cowan has been presented in a most agreeably palatable and visually attractive manner in this book designed with theatrical flair. Book, exhibition and museum catalogue represent 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 blue and white wares and even a Kangxi gilded, powder blue rouleau vase. The small doll of 1653/54 said to be a maquette for a costume worn by the king in the role of Mars is surely a remarkable survival (Private collection, France). The extended fan leaf lent by the Victoria and Albert Museum (c. 1675) illustrates, admittedly with elements of fantasy, the short-lived Trianon de Porcelaine built for Madame de Montespan with this maitresse en titre submerged in a plethora of recognisable treasures; the author even identifies a hotly contested jewel in a coffer in the foreground. A double portrait of a couple in classical costume as Vertumnus and Pomona from the store of the Bowes Museum has been identified by Mrs Cowan as a long-lost depiction of the two legitimised children of the marquise. Indeed, the former display in the Fan Museum and the publications have been generously supported by loans from the vast, miscellaneous collections of historic objects and works of fine and decorative art acquired en bloc by John and Josephine Bowes and which form the basis of the museum at Barnard Castle, County Durham, which bears their name. Both the larger and the smaller of these publications represent great value and provide a detailed revelation of a very little known aspect of the French dix-septieme siecle.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Apollo Magazine Ltd.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group