. . "2021-02-10T00:00:00"^^ . "Bris\u00E9 fan of seven sticks, each one shaped to represent a curled feather. Cut straw, applied to silk covered pasteboard. The sticks are made of rigid pasteboard, reinforced with fine metal rods or wires and covered in green silk decorated on both sides of high-quality appliqu\u00E9d straw and cut roundels of gold paper. The sticks are kept together by a green silk ribbon.\n\nThe straw veneers have been cut into shapes of flowers and birds, whose plumage are cut frayed. A coat of arms (made of gold paper, pale blue silk and cut straw) is displayed on the central stick of what probably is the front of the fan. On this same side, the straw tail and crown of peacocks are cut to show small pieces of blue and red silk."@en . "This bris\u00E9 fan is the earliest fan in the V&A's collection. A bris\u00E9 fan has sticks but no fan leaf. This one has seven sticks, each shaped to represent a feather, joined together with a green silk ribbon. The \u2018feathers\u2019 are made of rigid paste board, reinforced with fine metal rods or wires and covered in green silk decorated on both sides with high-quality appliqu\u00E9d straw work. The high quality of the straw-work suggests the fan might have been made in Florence, one of the centres for this craft in the early 17th century.\n\nThe tiny pieces of straw have been arranged in a design of birds and flowers, each \u2018feather\u2019 with an individual design. This decorative design can be seen as imitating the fashion for genre paintings of birds within landscapes and of flowers. The golden colouring of the straw-work emulates the opulent gold gilding that was characteristic of Baroque design during this period, with the green silk working to enhance the richness of colour. The shaping of the fan into cock feathers also reflects Baroque attributes of extravagance and dramatic display.\n\nFeather handscreens were one of the more popular types of fan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century and this style of bris\u00E9 fan may have been the only way to achieve a folding feather fan at this time. Several portraits painted in the 1660s by Girolamo Forabosco (1604-79) show fans of a similar shape to this fan. An example of a comparable fan, with a design making a more direct reference to (peacock) feathers, can be found in the Bayerisches National Museum, Munich."@en . "The coat of arms might be connected to the Florentine family, la famiglia aretina dei Bacci.\n\nA bris\u00E9 fan with narrower but similarly-shaped sticks features in a portrait of a \u2018Venetian Courtesan\u2019 by Girolamo Forabosco (c.1605-1679) in the Uffizi Gallery.\n\nA similar fan also features in a portrait of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, by Robert Peake the Younger, 1603, in the Greenwich Maritime Museum."@en . "Bris\u00E9 fan of pasteboard covered with silk, decorated with straw appliqu\u00E9 work, probably made in Florence, 1620s"@en .