Brisé fans

This green silk brisé fan is Italian and, dating from about 1620-40, is the earliest example in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection. Fans were made in Japan and China from the tenth century AD, but did not reach Europe until the second half of the sixteenth century. The term brisé describes a fan made of sticks with no fan leaf. the individual sticks of this fan are shaped to imitate feathers, and the decoration, in delicate straw appliqué work, is of exotic birds and flowers. In the early seventeenth century straw-work of this high quality was prduced in the area around Florence. Both brisé fans and fans with folding leaves were popular in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Although many portraits of this period show fans being held in the hand, very few have survived.

Bibliography

*cite book|author=Jackson, Anna (ed.)|title= V&A: A Hundred Highlights|publisher=V&A Publications|year=2001