The fan offered to the customers of the Savoy and The Gentlewoman
Indeed, for several months, the directions of The Gentlewoman and of the Savoy Hotel had been working together in order to offer the elegant and wealthy clientele of the Strand great
hotel a fan using this very leaf. An owner of one of these fans,
Mr J. T. Jeffery, had in 1982 the curiosity (nothing stops fans lovers,
or their spouses) of writing to the director of the Savoy. The answer
was given - through a letter in our possession- on 20 December
1982 (in time for New Year's Eve!) by Patricia Kelvin, MA, PhD,
Archivist. The "Savoy Hotel Limited" group is still at 1, Savoy Hill.
But does the company still hire an Archivist, furthermore a Doctor in
Arts? Patricia Kelvin, having studied the archive, quotes a letter from
George Reeves-Smith, Director of the Savoy, to A. J. Warden, editor of The Gentlewoman.
With regard
to the packing of the fans, this will depend on the date on which our cases are
ready; I am having some samples made, but am unable at the moment to say when
the 1500 required will be ready ... possibly it would be more convenient if our
cases were ready in time for the fans to be placed in them by your people. I
think that in each case there should be a slip of paper enclosed giving a short
history of the fan; something to the effect that this is in the possession of
Her Majesty the Queen and that special permission has been given to copy the
fan. At the foot of all this all we should wish to state would be "With
the Compliments of the Savoy, New Year's Eve. 1910/11" Perhaps you would
kindly make a suggestion as to the legend to accompany the fan … (Our ref: DM/40/743)
Current view of a salon of the Savoy (http://fr.grandluxuryhotels.com)
Patricia Kelvin goes on quoting the press on 2 January 1911
Le Telegraph :
In the luxurious salons of the Savoy Hotel there were gathered between 1500 and
2000 ladies and gentlemen. The former each received as a souvenir a Rinaldo
fan, an exact replica of the original which belongs to Queen Alexandra.
The Telegraph words, actually incorrect, since the fan belonged to Queen Mary and not to her stepmother Queen Alexandra, was complemented by The Times, quoted by the same letter of 1982:
The Savoy
always has a very large supper lis on New Year's Eve, but upon this occasion,
the 2lst anniversary of the opening of the hotel, the attendance was greatly
increased. The Strand entrance had been transformed into a huge marquee, lit
with hundreds of different coloured lights, and through this the guests passed
to the new ballroom and supper rooms. Over 2000 people sat down to supper and
the accommodation was taxed to the utmost, several tables having to be arranged
in the entrance lounge
Patricia Kevin also states that if Mr. Warden (and The Gentlewoman)
was clearly responsible for the printing of those fan leaves, the boxes
were made by JS Henry & Co, 1 New Burlington ST., the silk
cover having been chosen by Mr. Reeves-Smith himself.
|
Rinaldo and Armida?
Unfortunately we have no information on the fanmaker who
would have mounted these fans. A lot of them still do exist, and many
readers of this article might have one... or many. Like us, they
probably have the same question, and maybe someone has got the
answer? The satin leaf with poor colours, is undoubtedly a
British production , like other satin sheets offered on the occasion of
a dozen Christmases by The Gentlewoman. But Britain, an important large Hand Fans nation in the eighteenth century is hardly known for its productions of the Belle Époque.
Now the fan has all the characteristics of the mounted luxury
fans gifts given at the beginning of the century by large hotels and
shipping companies, both in France and in the United Kingdom or the
United States. But these fans, as far as we know, were always made in
France. The box itself (see fig. 3, top) resembles
those used by companies like Duvelleroy or Kees. It is however fully
satin lined -unusually including the bottom-, and no inscription is
shown. Inside, obviously printed and cut to fit the box, a paper wears
a mention that reminds those already mentioned above:
The fan presented is a
facsimile of the famous « Rinaldo » fan, on which is depicted a scene
in the story of Rinaldo in the garden of Armida. The original is in the
collection of Her Majesty the Queen, who has very graciously granted special
permission for its reproduction. With
compliments from the Savoy New Year’s Eve 1910
We know that a fairly large number of fans are referring to the famous Tasso's novel Jerusalem Delivered,
where we see Rinaldo out of his way to the Holy Places by spells of the
sorceress Armida, and enjoying with her the delights of an
enchanted and enchanting stay (see fig. 4). Armide
normally holds her magical mirror, and the two lovers are often
surrounded by putti playing with the weapons of the warrior. A
classical representation also shows Rinaldo's companions Ubald and the
Danish, arriving to end this enchanted holiday and put him back on the
right path, that of Jerusalem. This is not really the scene we show on
the fans offered by the the Savoy Hotel in New Year's Eve 1910.
|
Renaud
et Armide (éventail début XVIIIe
siècle)
Fig. 4
|
 Fig..5
|
We
assume that all these fans are identical to the one we show, taken from
our collection. They are mounted with the leaf inserted in The Gentlewoman. This leaf, although doubled, is mounted "à l'anglaise" (see Fig. 5). The sticks seem to be bone, cut, embossed and gilded with Louis XV style foliage and floral decoration.
During an exhibition at the Fan Museum in Greenwich (Collector's Choice, 1995), the original fan belonging to the Royal collection was
shown. It was for Hélène Alexander an occasion for recallong the story
we are developing here. However, the fan was said to have "pressed
ivory sticks.
But
let us come back to H.M. Queen Mary's fan, the cause of all this. It
has been shown not only at the Fan Museum in 1995, but also when the
Royal collection of fans was exhibited in 2005, and subsequently in the
Trinity opera (same but different) that were then published . To say the truth, in a series of articles [4] devoted from May 1927 to Queen Mary's collections,
Ms Emily Gibson had again presented this fan to the public, still
seeing "Rinaldo in the garden of Armida". But when you look closely to
the Gentlewoman copy (see fig. 6), and even more to the original (visible, like other fans of the royal collection on http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/exhibits.asp?exhibition=FANS ),
you understand that this interpretation is invalid. Helen Alexander and
the authors of the 2005 catalogs do not fail to give the correct
explanation.
|
Fig. 6
No, a bacchanal!
Indeed,
the central couple can not be Rinaldo and Armida . The man is crowned
with vine leaves and carries a thyrsus, clear Bacchus attribute .
Hymen crowns the two lovers and they are surrounded by young women
playing tambourines and dancing as only Bacchae can do. Thus The Gentlewoman and the Savoy in this prude England,
barely out of the Victorian era, dit not give to see Rinaldo,
succumbing from a female magician charms, which could honor women wit
and power. Nay, it was a Bacchanale where a beautiful but drunken and
lecherous god was united with who knows who : Venus, abandoned Ariadne or
mere mortal? Such scenes of revelry are quite frequently found on the
fans. If the older may sometimes retain the rawness of their models,
from the Eighteenth century (and even more in the Nineteenth) they
often lose their most daring characters : drunken Silenus crushing his
ass, naked Bacchantes, satyrs and other figures in ambiguous positions.
None of this on the Royal fan reproduced by The Gentlewoman.
This
would suggest that H.M. the Queen Mary, worthy grandmother of the
current Queen Elizabeth, an avid and pugnatious collector before the Lord,
- of fans and other objects, especially royal -, has died, a few weeks
before the coronation of her granddaughter, without knowing the truth.
Anyways, when Queen Elizabeth II, during the festivities of her coming,
holded a fan, it was not that one!
Pierre-Henri Biger
December 2013
A new The Gentlewoman magazine is published since 2010. It is said to be much-hyped and the sister magazine to Fantastic Man. Sure that style, fashion and "hype" spirit have changed a lot during the last century!
GIBSON (E.), “Some fans from the
Collection of Her Majesty The Queen”, The
Connoisseur, LXXVIII, May-August 1927 (n° 309 p 3-9; 310 p 67-73 et 311 p
131-138 + 3 pl. H.T.)
Sauf mentions contraires, tous objets et photos Coll. et © C & P.H. B.
