This fan was a gift to Queen Mary from Princess Hélène (1871-1951), the second daughter of the Comte de Paris and the younger sister of Princess Amélie. In August 1890 the Roman Catholic Princess Hélène had become engaged to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, after a whirlwind romance. The engagement was broken off on instructions from Princess Hélène’s father, and in December 1891 the Duke became engaged to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck (later Queen Mary). After his death in the following month, Princess Victoria Mary married the Duke’s younger brother, the Duke of York, and in June 1895 Princess Hélène married Prince Emanuele of Savoy (1869-1931), 2nd Duke of Aosta, in the Roman Catholic church of St Raphael, Kingston-on-Thames. The arms of France and Savoy, set in diamonds, appear on the front and back of the guards. According to Queen Mary’s biographer:

'On the grandiose tomb erected to the Duke of Clarence’s memory [at Windsor] there hung until quite recently a wreath of immortelles inscribed simply, ‘Hélène’. And Princess Hélène it is who deserves to have the last word on the subject of the Duke. In November 1892 Queen Victoria had a conversation with this charming girl who had so faithfully loved her not very lovable grandson. Je l’aimais tant, said Princess Hélène, adding, somewhat surprisingly, Il était si bon.'

The occasion for the gift of this fan is not recorded, but the presence of the conjoined arms indicate that it followed Princess Hélène’s marriage in 1895.

Madeleine Jeanne Lemaire (née Colle; 1845-1928), who signed the fan leaf, was a leading French fan-painter and book illustrator and was much employed by Duvelleroy. She was trained by her aunt Madame Herbelin - a miniaturist - and later by Charles Chaplin. One of her watercolours was listed in the Osborne catalogue of 1876 as a gift from the Prince de Joinville to Queen Victoria. Although that watercolour is no longer in the Royal Collection, Lemaire’s decorated concert programme for June 1898 is in one of the Duchess of Connaught’s photograph albums. In October 1902 she published an article in Fémina in which she gave detailed instructions concerning the types of paper and vellum currently available for the manufacture of fans; in the same article she also lamented the recent fall in standards of fan-making. The sticks of the present fan are signed by Adrian J. Rodien, a fan-maker of 48 Rue Cambon, Paris. In 1889 he had been awarded a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, and in 1900 was awarded a gold medal. Rodien also signed the guards of the Eu fan, also in the Royal Collection.

Paper leaf inscribed Madeleine Lemaire; the sticks verso inscribed A. Rodien, Paris

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