This section contains four further fans from Queen Mary’s collection, each one indicating her fine eye for quality and detail: both the painting and the silver piqué sticks in the fan depicting 'The Continence of Scipio' (purchased in 1925) are remarkable. The Honiton lace fan was presented by the Worshipful Company of Fan Makers at the time of the coronation in 1911, while the sequinned marriage fan was a family gift on the Queen’s eighty-first birthday in 1948.

By the time of Queen Mary’s death in 1953, fans had virtually disappeared from fashionable use throughout Europe. The inclusion of fans in the trousseau of the dolls, France and Marianne, was an attempt to preserve the interest in fan usage and fan-making. The dolls were presented by the children of France to Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret at the time of the State Visit to France in 1938.

Fans have continued to be added to the Royal Collection over the last sixty years, including a number presented to HM The Queen (born 1926) on her marriage in 1947. Appropriately, these included the fine mid-eighteenth-century marriage fan. The beautiful ‘Eu’ fan, with leaf painted by the French artist Eugène Lami, arrived in the Collection as a bequest from Queen Amélie of Portugal (born Orléans; 1864-1951), for whose marriage in 1886 the fan had been made.