An article on Queen Mary's fans included the following comment on the present fan: 'A useful and unusual detail in this fan, which can be clearly seen in the illustration, is the lorgnon, which, working on a spring, can be hidden under the panache when not wanted.' In the course of the nineteenth century, numerous patents were taken out in Paris for fans of ever more ingenious construction and variety of attachments. Patents for fans with lorgnettes attached to guard sticks were issued in 1838, 1855, 1867, 1888 and 1899. Of these the penultimate, the Eventail-lorgnon registered by Hermine Baeder in 1888, is closest in design to the present fan.

The fan leaf is a hand-coloured lithograph printed on paper, a popular medium for fan leaves throughout Europe by the mid-nineteenth century. There was still a burgeoning market for fans with the construction and appearance little changed from the eighteenth century, hence the desire to introduce novelties such as patent mechanisms. Fans such as this are generally described as having been made for the Spanish market. This fan had belonged to Queen Mary's mother, Princess Mary Adelaide, the second daughter of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge (seventh son of George III); in 1866 Princess Mary Adelaide married Francis, Prince and Duke of Teck. The couple were based chiefly in England, but also travelled frequently to Germany and spent a prolonged period in Florence where it was possible to live well at less expense than in London. Queen Mary was Princess Mary Adelaide's only daughter and inherited a number of her fans.

Lorgnon with a French nineteenth-century maker's mark containing the letter D

Text adapted from Unfolding Pictures: Fans in the Royal Collection, 2005