The fan leaf shows winged Cupid at left, holding the hand of Psyche, who emerges from her chariot supported on clouds. The subject is an episode from the story of Cupid and Psyche, a late Antique fairy tale recounted in Apuleius’s Golden Ass: Psyche was a beautiful maiden who aroused the jealousy of Venus, the goddess of love. Cupid, the god of love, was sent by Venus to arrange for Psyche to fall in love with some worthless being, but instead fell in love with her himself. After a number of adventures, Jupiter took pity on Psyche and she was carried up to heaven, there to be reunited with Cupid.

With such a subject, the fan was well suited to serve as a marriage gift. It was one of over forty fans presented to the future Queen Mary at the time of her wedding in 1893. The donor was Charles Brinsley Marlay (1831-1912) who is chiefly known today as one of the greatest benefactors of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. His bequest to the Museum consisted of a large capital sum in addition to a fine collection of paintings, drawings, books, manuscripts, and decorative arts, which included fourteen fans.

This fan is typically English, in the fine floral border and reserves, and the working of the ivory in both the guards and the sticks. The guards are carved with an elegantly dressed man holding a crook, a goose at his feet. The silhouetted figures on the gorge depict, in the centre, Hector taking leave of his wife Andromache and his son Astyanax.

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