By Bill Gaither
Members gathered on September 22, 2024, for a delightful and memorable presentation by Candice Hern on “Brisé Fans: An Essential Accessory in the Time of Jane Austen.” Ms. Hern is a best-selling and award-winning author of Regency romances and of longer historical romances set in the Regency period. She is also a collector of Georgian and Regency antiques and is a sought-after speaker on Regency and Jane Austen topics, as well as being an active member of JASNA, where she has served as Regional Coordinator. Her award-winning website contains a wealth of information about Regency life as well as annotated images from her collections of jewelry, fashion accessories, and functional objets d’art. She regularly contributes to her Regency-themed pages on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
In contrast to a conventional folding fan, which is made of narrow sticks that are joined by pleated leaves of silk or paper, a brisé (Fr. “broken”) fan is constructed entirely of wide, overlapping, finely pierced sticks of ivory, tortoise shell, or mother-of-pearl, or less costly horn or bone. In addition to the piercing, which produced a lace-like effect, the sticks were sometimes further decorated with carved or painted designs or figures or, in more expensive fans, with piqué work and gilding. The sticks were connected to each other by a silk ribbon threaded through the upper portions, were protected by decorated guard sticks of the same material on either side, and were held together at the bottom by an ornamental rivet and washer. Regency brisé fans, like most fans of the period, were small, only six to seven inches long, spreading to a width of about 12 inches.
In Jane Austen’s day these fans were referred to as “ivory fans,” “carved fans,” or “pierced fans,” not as brisé fans, which is a 20th-century term. In England brisé fans were “never as widespread in use as conventional folding fans, but did reach their peak of popularity in the Regency period.”
Ms. Hern gave a brief history of brisé fans in England and described the two major styles of brisé fans in the Regency period, neoclassical and Chinese. She described the painstaking methods of crafting brisé fans, noted the advantages and disadvantages of sticks made of ivory, tortoiseshell, and mother-of-pearl compared with sticks of horn or bone, and described the various techniques for decorating fans. Finally, she touched on the “language of the fan” that was promoted by fan shops in the Victorian era.
Ms. Hern shared many images of beautiful brisé fans, mostly from her own collection, and provided insights into their design and craftsmanship. The image on the right shows a section of a very expensive ivory fan that is not only exquisitely pierced and carved but that is also beautifully decorated with painted velvet and with feathers on the wings of the figures of birds and insects.
The following image below shows a “typical Regency brisé fan.” The sticks are pierced horn threaded with a pink ribbon and painted with blue-and-white flowers on the side shown and with pink-and-white flowers on the other side.
In Volume 1, Chapter 10 of Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland studies her fan as she waits hopefully for Henry Tilney to arrive and ask her to dance for a third time: “That she might not appear, however, to observe or expect him, she kept her eyes intently fixed on her fan.”
We might hope that Catherine was inspecting an attractive brisé horn fan of the type shown above, or perhaps even a more luxurious ivory brisé fan that she might have borrowed from her affluent Aunt Allen. But more importantly, Henry Tilney did ask her to dance for a third time!
Next Up
Next month, we have our annual AGM debrief on October 27th, and on October 20th we’re hosting an online gathering of fun and conversation as a meetup for virtual attendees of the AGM and anyone who’d like to join in (all are welcome!).
In November, we’ll have our Virtual Book Club with our fanfiction pick Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattillo, and we’ll even be joined by the author for part of the meeting! In December, we’ll have our annual hybrid Jane Austen’s birthday celebration and meeting, so stay tuned for more details to come!
