The fan leaf contains three principal and four subsidiary views of buildings which would have been visited by Englishmen travelling to Rome in the late eighteenth century. In the central oval is the Pantheon, in the left oval are the three columns of the Temple of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux) in the Forum, and in the right oval the Basilica of Maxentius or Constantine. The smaller fields show (at left) the Tombs of Cecilia Metella and of the Horatii and the Curiatii (both on the Via Appia Antica), and (at right) the Temple of Vesta in the Forum and a corner fragment of a Corinthian cornice.

Many thousands of fan leaves of this type must have been made in Italy for the tourist trade. Some would have been sent home unmounted, for attachment to sticks in England; others may have been mounted on plain sticks in Italy. A fan-shaped box containing a finished fan leaf and a design for a fan, signed in Rome by the otherwise unknown Neopolitan artist Domenico Spinetti, provides a rare insight into the export process; the box is marked with the name of the forwarding agent in Livorno and of the consignee in London. In most cases the names of artist and agents are unknown. The majority of the surviving fans with Roman views date from the late eighteenth century.

This is one of four fans in the Royal Collection with a traditional association with Princess Augusta (1768-1840), the second daughter of George III and Queen Charlotte. The Princess never married. Following her mother’s death in 1818 she resided chiefly at Frogmore House, Windsor, until her death in 1840. It was probably through her brother, Prince Augustus, Duke of Sussex, that some of her personal effects were transferred to their niece, Queen Victoria: Princess Augusta died intestate and Prince Augustus acted as her executor. A further six fans, described at the end of Queen Victoria’s reign as having belonged to ‘one of the Queen’s aunts’, may also have come from Princess Augusta’s collection. Two of these fans are still in the Collection; the remainder were bequeathed elsewhere by Queen Victoria.

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