When Artists Turned to the Fan: The Met Revisits a 19th-Century Obsession

Henri-Gabriel Ibels (French, Paris 1867–1936 Paris). Circus Fan, ca. 1893–95. Lithograph on silk fan leaf.

In the late 19th century, European artists found unexpected freedom in a surprisingly modest format. Edgar Degas sketched dancers across crescent-shaped compositions meant to echo the sweep of a folding fan; Camille Pissarro experimented with pastoral scenes that curved gently outward, as if opening toward the viewer; others played with metallic pigments, feathers, or lacquer, borrowing directly from the vocabulary of fan makers. In their hands, the fan became a hybrid object — part canvas, part design surface

The allure of the fan had deep roots. By the 18th century, it was far more than a flirtatious prop; it served as a tool of education, political messaging, and even discreet surveillance. Women carried fans that could be read like small social scripts, their materials and motifs signalling taste, status, and worldliness.

                                    Fan Mount: The Ballet, Edgar Degas, 1879, The Met

By the mid-19th century, industrialisation and global trade transformed the fan into a mass-produced fashion staple. Japonisme brought a flood of Japanese fans into Paris, prized for their pared-down elegance and unusual materials. At the same time, “Hispagnolisme” swept through the capital. Empress Eugénie — Spanish-born and devoted to Spanish dress, accessories, and courtly traditions — elevated the Spanish fan to a marker of fashionable cosmopolitanism. She collected and used them, championing Spanish artisans and prompting Parisian makers to imitate the dramatic lace, bold colour, and theatrical scale favoured in Spain. Dance troupes and musicians, popularised in the French capital, further fed this appetite, giving Manet and his peers an entirely new visual vocabulary to borrow from.

It is against this richly layered backdrop that Fanmania opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 11. The exhibition features more than 75 works from eight departments, tracing how the fan’s familiar silhouette captured artists' imaginations at a moment when they were beginning to question the limits of traditional media. What emerges is not a history of a fashion object, but a history of how artists recognised its potential — both as motif and as medium.

Ashley E. Dunn, Associate Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints, notes: “Fans are familiar objects to everyone—we still see them in use around New York, especially on subway platforms in the summertime. This exhibition examines a moment in which ambitious artists in Europe became captivated by fans, making works in the distinct arched shape and borrowing materials typically employed by fan makers.”

                         Fan Mount: The Cabbage Gatherers, Camille Pissaro, ca 1878-79

“The exhibition aims to show the broader context of this phenomenon, a period when fans were ubiquitous. Lavishly ornate and cheaply made fans, as well as objects with fan motifs, flooded both specialty shops and the new department stores. Fan collectors ranged from the Impressionists and their literary friends to bourgeois women bent on improving their personal style and home décor,” adds Jane R. Becker, Collections Specialist in the Department of European Paintings.

The curatorial narrative takes a deliberately expansive approach. Early European examples reveal fans as tools of social choreography. From there, the exhibition moves through the commercial explosion of the 19th century, touching on department-store culture, global trade, and the craze for Japanese and Spanish imports.

In Fanmania, the fan emerges not simply as an adornment but as a creative catalyst — a reminder that art and design have long been entwined.