Fans

The collection consists of 26 items from the 18th to the 20th century, including six exquisite fans from the renown French maison of Alexandre. Among them, two fans were painted by Edouard de Beaumont (1812-1888), who was an artist famous for its drawings, etchings, lithographs and illustrations, and one was made by Napoléon Franco, whom Alexandre commissioned around 1857. Undoubtedly, the most elegant is the wedding fan created by Alexandre specially for Zoe Bibikova’s marriage with Prince Eugen Lvov. The Coronini fans were intented to be used on different occasions like half-mourning, wedding, engagement or in the evening. Their leaves are made of silk, Duchesse or Chantilly lace, kid leather, paper, ostrich feather, horn or ivory, while mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoise shell, bamboo, wood and bone were used to manufacture their montures. The collection includes also three hand screens.