Wooden handle with shaped ivory finishes. The fan screen is composed by a thin straw weaving which forms a 8 points star decoration and it is tied with the handle. There are many models very similar to this one either in the screen or in the handle. A model of fan very similar to this one, is conserved in the Museum Horne in Florence (inv. n. 763). The work has the same double crossing technique, which is common to other models, the comparison can be done on the basis of the corresponding measures and on the same asymmetries of the design. […] The use of the straw for similar objects was very diffused in the XVI century because it’s mentioned even in the sumptuary rules of Venice and Parma and it can’t be excluded it was very diffused even in other places. In fact in the general hard effort to moderate the luxury, this material represented a good alternative for the legislative. But the provenience of these fans is not a clear question. In an articulated situation of comparison between sources which will confirm a middle-oriental origin, there’s a fan with characteristics not very different from this one and which shows Kufic letters. From : M. A. Chessa, I ventagli della collezione………, research thesis , Pisa 2008, p.27.
19/11/2011
Anna Checcoli writes to me:
…… it could be italian or north-african and it’s of the XVIII century. Unfortunally the story of the fan Horn was born for a misunderstanding whose guilty is the catalogue "Ventagli Italiani", where the subtitles of both fans have been inverted. A mistake reported everywhere…….
"Details make perfection, and perfection is not a detail."
Leonardo Da Vinci
