Fan - Wedding of Tobias ?

Both sides of the leaf, which is painted in deep hues, are framed using identical scallop, grid and flower motifs —of chinoiserie origin—executed in brown and patterned and contoured in gold. In the middle of the recto a young woman is sitting on a scallop-shaped throne beside a laid table on the far side of the table an angel is raising a goblet. Serving-girls are approaching the table one of them is kneeling next to a vessel for cooling. Behind her two others are preparing a platter of fruit, and a third is drying a platter. To the left three women are making music with a lyre, a trumpet, and a triangle with rings attached. The scene probably depicts the wedding of Tobias and Sarah related in the Old Testament (Tob. 7, 9—15) the picture on which it was presumably based is as yet unknown. On the verso, three female figures and a young man with a shepherd's crook can be seen on three tiny islands. On the sticks are small polychrome chinoiserie pictures in vividly coloured—green, red, purple, and turquoise— cartouches, along with mother-of-pearl inlay. The bottommost parts of the guard-sticks are mother-of- pearl applique. A very similar fan in the collection of the Museum of Fine Art at Boston, Mass. is published in Bennett 1988, No. 6 as Italian work. At the same time Kammerl 1989, No. 24 considers a kindred piece to be of English make. There is similar frame embellishment on two fans at the Museum of Applied Arts: MAA inv. nos. 4171 and 20464 (Cat. Nos. 9 and 10).