A pierced ivory brisé fan painted with an allegory of marriage thought to represent The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert with religion and hymen, the other cartouches with a couple in the characters of Fidelity and Constancy, the painting French, in the manner of Fragonard, the tips of the guardsticks with engraved gold plaques - 10½in., circa 1786 (part of stick above left-hand cartouche replaced, probably in the 19th century, fragment of ivory missing from another stick)

Details

A pierced ivory brisé fan painted with an allegory of marriage thought to represent The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert with religion and hymen, the other cartouches with a couple in the characters of Fidelity and Constancy, the painting French, in the manner of Fragonard, the tips of the guardsticks with engraved gold plaques - 10½in., circa 1786 (part of stick above left-hand cartouche replaced, probably in the 19th century, fragment of ivory missing from another stick)

See colour plate

Provenance

Mr. Robert Walker, Uffington, Berkshire, sold Sotheby's, 8th June 1882, lot 61 for 18 guineas to Mr. Maitland, a dealer
Colonel de Lancey
Sold Hotel Drouot, 8th - 12th April 1889 to Mr. Buisson
Collection Henin,
Sold Hotel Drouot, 13th December 1924, lot 266
Faucon

Literature

Rhead, p.195
Buisson, Collection des éventails anciens des XVII et XVIII siècles, d'après éventails authentiques Louis XIV, Louis V et Louis XVI, Paris 1890, p. 195

Lot Essay

There is a similar fan in the Messel-Rosse Collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Traditionally said to have been painted by Richard Cosway who was patronised by both The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Fitzherbert. Marie-Anne Smythe (1756-1837) married Edward Weld and later Thomas Fitzherbert (d.1781). She met the Prince in 1785 and they went through a form of marriage that December. As the marriage was invalid The Prince of Wales was able to marry Princess Caroline of Brunswick in 1795.

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