Thanks to all visitors who have kindly delivered their opinions (often extremely judicious) after our preceding questions. Many of them are still not solved, although posted here all those last years. Thank you thus to look at them again ! The fan below is a priori simple to analyze. It is a fan with finely pierced ivory sticks, rather characteristic of a lot of English fans (folding as well as "brisés") from the end of XVIIIth and beginning of XIXth century. However this fan asks several questions... Thank you for examining the fan below (by flying over with your mouse, you will help the reverse to appear)

Please click below on the center to get a close-up picture.      What questions does this fan ask ? They are very simple ! - Who are these four characters ? - Is the castle seen at the bottom Russian, with its bulbs and its Kremlin look ? - Is the scene drawn from a novel (Walter Scott's or other...) ? - Doesn't it come rather, as the curtain on the right could make it think, from a play (maybe Shakespeare? ...but which one ?) ? - Is this fan a copy of a painting or a known illustration, for example of Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) who illustrated Shakespeare's theatre, as well as of Walter Scott's novels or Lord Byron's poems ? Stothard was a prolific book illustrator. Among his pictures on literary subjects are three paintings on scenes from Shakespeare for Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (III.iv), Othello (II.i), and Henry VIII (I.iv). In his later years he drew illustrations for the works of Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, and Samuel Rogers (Waterhouse 360).

As always, all your contributions are welcome ! (See email address on Home Page)

and do not forquet the other questions.

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