Dutch-Colonies-L Archives

Archiver > Dutch-Colonies > 2002-03 > 1017096337


From: Cor Snabel <>
Subject: [D-Col] Obsolete occupations - Fanmaker
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 23:45:37 +0100


Dear friends,

The fan was originally invented to keep away the flies or just to fan
one self. Soon it became a valuable and useful object for the ladies.

Regards
Cor Snabel
The Netherlands

-----------------------------------------------------

Fan maker (waaiermaker)

Originally fans were manufactured mainly in France and only after the
retract of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 the French fan makers spread out
over Northern Europe. Most of them went to England and only a few
settled in Holland.
Fan making has never become a flourishing trade in Holland, everyone was
allowed to manufacture and sell them. In England a fan maker’s guild was
founded in 1709 and it had a few hundred members. But the guild members
could not stop the import of the far more elegant French fans, which
were painted much finer. They started to copy the Chinese fans and these
imitations became such a success, that even France started importing
them.

The first folding fan was introduced in Europe in the 16th century and
became very popular. The ladies had fans for every special occasion:
mourning fans were sold in large amounts, for the interim phase there
was the “light” mourning fan and they had for instance the wedding fan
and the church fan. The wedding fan was richly painted with the suitable
allegorical scenes and decorated with gold and silver, the fan sticks
made of ivory. The church fans however were sober; don’t forget in the
Reformed Church every finery was prohibited. The ladies used the fan for
several purposes; to hide their bad breath or brown teeth, but also for
communication (read flirtation). Almost every movement with the fan had
a special meaning, from “I love you” to “I love someone else” and from
“kiss me” to “that is the limit”.

The fan making could be divided in several trades; the ivory worker who
made the fan sticks, the miniature painter, the actual fan maker (mostly
women), who folded and assembled the fan and occasionally the gold- and
silversmith.
The fans were sold by the ivory workers, along with luxury utensils,
like ivory buttons, silk gloves and turtle or ivory inlayed snuffboxes.


This thread: