Fan - with the portrait of Emperor Ferdinand I and Archduke Charles

The uncoloured leaf is framed by a series of pointed arches intersecting each other, and is divided up by three medallions. In the middle, in an oval field, two allegorical figures—a river-god and Austria—hold an inscription in a wreath of oak leaves above a commemorative stone also inscribed. In the wreath: Wegen Rettung / des Vaterlandes / durch Zurückschlagung / der Gallier. = For saving the Fatherland by beating back the Gauls. On the stone: Ewig FRANZ der Beste lebe / Biedermann und Teutsch ist er. / Ewig KARL der Tapfre lebe / Menschenfreund und Held ist er. = May Francis the Best live forever! A fine man and a German is he. / May Charles the Brave live for ever! A friend to mankind and a hero is he. Beneath: Das Dankbare Oesterreich. = A grateful Austria. On either side, in a circular field framed by a laurel wreath, are profile pictures of the Emperor Francis (on the left) and the Archduke Charles (on the right) depicted in the manner of heroes of Antiquity. Between the three medallions are festoons hung on trailing acanthus. The sticks are embellished with festoons of leaves and branches. On the two middle ones are a male and figure, respectively, turned towards each other. On the guard-sticks the very same female figure is repeated. In the wake of Darnay's article mentioned below, this fan is regarded as having been made on the occasion of the victorious Battle of Aspern (1809). On the basis of an identical fan which featured an an exhibition held to mark the centenary of the Battle of Aspern and dedicated to the Archduke Charles, it can be stated that it commemorates the victories of the archduke - field marshal on the banks of the Rhine in 1796. Stylistic features also corroborate this earlier dating.