By the end of the nineteenth century feathers had been used to make both rigid and folding fans for many centuries. However, a wide range of different feathers were now used, to create both colouristic and textural variety. Vienna was the centre of the production of feather fans at the time. This fan was a wedding present to the future Queen Mary from Count and Countess Henry Larisch; it retains its original box with the fragmentary trade stamp of the Viennese firm Gebrüder Rodeck. The bride’s familiar name, MAY, set in diamonds, adorns the front guard. Overlapping pairs of large feathers, attached to each stick, form the supports for numerous tiny jay feathers, pasted onto the backing feathers.

The technique of making folding feather fans was soon mastered in London. In 1901 the future Queen Mary received from her husband a fan made of the pin feathers from woodcocks shot by the Duke of York. Each of the 6,520 feathers was fixed by a lady ‘with two stitches of thread and worked upon a linen base’; the present fan uses a different fixing technique.

Text adapted from Unfolding Pictures: Fans in the Royal Collection 2005