This fan is a souvenir of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s stay with Emperor Napoleon III in 1855. After the Emperor and Empress had been the guests of Queen Victoria at Windsor and Buckingham Palace in April 1855, the Queen and Prince - with their two eldest children - were the guests of the imperial couple from 18 to 27 August at the Château de Saint Cloud, just to the west of Paris. (The palace was destroyed during the Franco-Prussian War.) Several visits were paid to Paris and to Versailles. As with the 1843 visit, the main events were recorded in a number of watercolours which were presented to Queen Victoria by her host at the end of the year. Further painted records of the visit were commissioned by the Queen; all twenty-six of these watercolours remain in the Royal Collection. However, the artist responsible for the views painted on this leaf is not known.

The front of the fan shows bust-length portraits of Emperor Napoleon III and his wife, the Empress Eugénie, with scenes in the gardens of their chief residences - Versailles and Saint Cloud - to left and right. The portraits of the Emperor and Empress were based on recent paintings by Winterhalter. The figures in the scenes at either side are doubtless intended to represent the royal and imperial families. The large British coat of arms on the gorge and the decoration on the fan leaf verso clearly indicate that the fan was made for Queen Victoria. It is likely that it is the fan presented to Queen Victoria by the Empress on 27 August, the last day of the visit. The Queen’s entry in her Journal for that day records that the Empress ‘gave me a beautiful fan, and a rose and a heliotrope from the garden’. Old records state that the fan was bought by Queen Victoria at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. During the course of her three visits to the exhibition, which was one of the principal reasons for the royal visit to France, Queen Victoria is known to have purchased a fan (which remains in the Royal Collection), a bronze, and some Lyons silk.

Miniatures signed E.C. and Et.C

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