Presented to Queen Victoria by Prince Albert on her birthday, this fan, a popular nineteenth-century type derived from Chinese feather fans, contains floral emblems of the British Isles. Rose, shamrock and thistle are linked with swags of lily-of-the-valley, the ‘birth flower’ for the month of May. The Queen’s monogram, ‘AVR’ (Alexandrina Victoria Regina) appears, crowned, in the centre.