Fan

In the middle of the leaf, which was once probably red but which is now brown, is an engraving on a circular piece of paper: a young man and a child are listening to a lady playing a keyboard instrument. The source of the depiction is a scene from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. A possible original is a graphic work entitled Sorrows of Werter by Francesco Bartolozzi (1728—1815) published in London in 1785. The scene is bordered by a row of spangles. On the edges of the leaf is festoon ornamentation, and in the middle—on either side of the engraving—can be seen the letters A and M, in the midst of geometric ornamentation. The sticks are embellished with painted flowers and ribbons, and the guard-sticks with carved and painted flowers and ribbons. When the fan is closed it seems as though the sculpted ribbon on the guard-sticks is wound round the other sticks from top to bottom, binding them together. An identically constructed piece with similarly worked sticks is MAA inv. no. 57.876.