Fan

Dateca. 1740

Maker M. Gamble

MediumLaid paper with etching and watercolor, Ivory sticks, Gilt paint, Brass inlay, Mother of Pearl Inlay, Wooden Ribs

DimensionsLength: 10 1/8; Width when Open: 18"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1981-195

DescriptionWoman's small folding fan with ivory sticks with etched, painted, and printed paper leaf in a scene depicting the Battle of Portobello. The illustration at the front of the fan depicts three scenes. The leftmost scene depicts fice british sailors (one holding a British Flag outlined in gilt), a red coated drummer, and a Spanish soldier on his knees before an English officer. On the far left is a chest inscribed "Porto Bello". In the background, a red, Spanish fortification (representing the "Iron Castle" has been blown up. The center illustration depicts ships at sea including three Man o' War (two of which fly the British colors), two gilded geese, and two shallops rowing toward the scene at right. In the background is an Island Citadel (San Gernymo) with a man in one of the turrets waving a white flag. The right scene includes a ruin (Gloria Castle) overlooking the bluffs towards the harbour. The city of Porto Bello is in the background with the men and one woman fleeing on foot. Two Spanish gentlemen fleeing on horseback while a British lion emerges from the forest. Another Spanish man carries a bundle marked "B.S'. To his right, a Spanish gentleman kneels before a box marked "F.S. 1740". The fan is signed "M. Gamble According to the late Act 1740." in the bottom left corner.

The back of the fan is plain except for a free hand watercolor of a pink carnation in bloom with two buds alongside a spike with four blue bell shaped flowers. The design is confined to the upper left half of the fan.

The fan sticks are a serpentine shape that straighten out where the mount begins. Each stick is placed in opposition to teh curve of the stick before it, creating an interwoven effect. Plume shaped pivot end.

The guards at either are the same shape is the inner fan sticks. At the point where the mount begins is a brass piqued star. The design at the upper portion of the guard consists of two pique brass points with a larger, three-lobed brass inlay above. Then a mother-of-pearl diamond with a pique center, inscribed with a diaper pattern and outlined in pique with four piqued points at each broad side of the diamond. Another brass inlay and three pique points sit above tthat diamond. The very top of the design ends with a mother-of-pearl oval etched with scallop designs, surrounded by pique points. The design is similar on both guards although the guard facing the back of the mount begins with five pique points below the star at the mount bottom. This guard also is reinforced with a flat piece of brass in between the guard and the stick just below the mount's beginning.
Label TextThis fan depicts a 1739 battle in the Caribbean between Great Britain and Spain. Porto Bello in Panama was a Spanish naval base; the British won the Battle of Porto Bello and took over the base, to great acclaim at home.

The Spanish-British war of the 1730s and 1740s was usually called the War of Jenkins Ear. The title came from a commercial sea captain named Robert Jenkins, who displayed before Parliament his severed ear damaged in 1731 by Spanish coast guards who had boarded his ship.

M. Gamble, whose name is on the fan, was a fan maker who worked in the 1730s and 1740s in London "At the sign of the Golden Fan, St. Martin's Court."

Exhibition(s)