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Fan Museum
back to sights listingHave you ever thought that there is a place devoted to every aspect of fans and fan making? The Fan Museum is the only one in the world. Who of us does not like fans? Whose inside living child has already played enough in his life and will deny watching other toys?
The Fan Museum is situated in the heart of historic Greenwich England and is within the World Heritage Site.
In the year of its opening in 1991, The Fan Museum had the distinction of awards from both the National Art Collections Fund and the English Tourist Board for "outstanding contributions to the Arts and to tourism".
The Fan Museum possesses a collection of more than 3,500 fans, mostly antique ones, from around the world dating from the 11th century to the present day. Its collection and fans on loan from other collections are displayed in changing themed exhibitions in which fans are presented in their historical, sociological and economic contexts.
The museum possesses a single collection of fans, fan leaves and related material in the world, with all extremely rare examples included, a selection of which is presented in a new exhibition, organized every four months at The Fan Museum.
The buildings at 10-12 Crooms Hill in Greenwich which house The Fan Museum are themselves of great interest and beauty. A pair of Grade II listed buildings, constructed in 1721, has been lovingly and authentically restored to retain their original character and elegance.
Royal Fans - 5 March 7 July 2002: This exhibition explores the role of fans at court and the extent to which they were used as status symbol by royalty throughout the centuries.
Several fans from Her Majesty The Queen's collection can be also seen here.
An Orangery, corresponds to the architecture of the period, has been added with a spectacular overall mural which provides a most elegant, unusual and exclusive setting for smaller, intimate functions.
The Orangery presents a "secret" garden in the Japanese style, with a fan shaped parterre, pond, stream and oriental architectural features - described by visitors as "an oasis of tranquility".
The gift shop at The Fan Museum contains a fascinating range of high quality items all of which have a fan theme. These make ideal and highly unusual gifts.
Early History
Few art forms combine functional, ceremonial and decorative uses as elegantly as the fan. Fewer still can match such diversity with a history stretching back at least 3,000 years.
Pictorial records of the earliest fans date from around 3000 BC and there is evidence that the Greeks, the Etruscans and Romans all used fans as cooling and ceremonial devices, while Chinese literary sources associate the fan with ancient mythical and historical characters.
Early fans were all of the fixed type, and the folding fan does not appear either in the East or the West until relatively late in its history.
The first folding fans were inspired by and copied from prototypes brought in to Europe by merchant traders and the religious orders who had set up colonies along the coasts of China and even Japan. These early fans were reserved for Royalty and the nobility and, as expensive toys, they were regarded as a status symbol. Whiles their "montures" (i.e. sticks and guards) were made from materials such as ivory, mother of pearl and tortoiseshell, often carved and pierced and ornamented with silver, gold and precious stones, the leaves were well painted by craftsmen who gradually amalgamated into guilds.
Fans in the 18th and 19th Centuries
By the 18th century fans were being made throughout Europe, while at the same time, fans imported from China by the East India Companies were ever popular.
By the end of the eighteenth century with the cheaper printed ones in production, fans were available to every strata of society in Europe and related to an endless variety of subjects- from Nelson's Victory of the Nile to instructions on "How to play Whist, and not lose your temper!" In the nineteenth century (with its early political turmoil), fans again reflected the times in the small brise horn fans so popular in the 1820's. Arguably the most lavish fans date from the second half of the century. Artists who painted these fans were often fashionable painters of their day who signed their work. On the other hand, the Impressionists, for example, who did not reflect popular taste and painted fans, never made their designs into "wearable" objects.
Fans in the 20th Century
Fans again mirrored the social and economical times in the twentieth century, with the rise of advertising and a more utilitarian and wasteful society. Today, in Europe, only in Spain is the fan part of everyday life, as it still remains in most hot countries, particularly in the Far East, and especially in Japan.
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