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Not currently on display at the V&A

Fan

late 18th century (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Axe-shaped fan (Panka) of cotton embroidered with silk thread. Opens to a butterfly shape. Outside the cotton surface has coloured silk and spangled embroidery with silver tinsel border. The embroidery ground is covered with a pattern of hexagons enclosing flower sprigs in shades of red and green, and the prominent effect being pink and tarnished silver. The lining, of European and probably Spitalfields, silk is brocaded with sprigs of coloured flowers on a ground of white and silver stripes. The metal handle is gilt with silver.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Embroidered cotton with silk thread and spangles, lined with brocaded silk
Brief description
Fan (Panka) of cotton embroidered with silk thread, Murshidabad, late 18th century
Physical description
Axe-shaped fan (Panka) of cotton embroidered with silk thread. Opens to a butterfly shape. Outside the cotton surface has coloured silk and spangled embroidery with silver tinsel border. The embroidery ground is covered with a pattern of hexagons enclosing flower sprigs in shades of red and green, and the prominent effect being pink and tarnished silver. The lining, of European and probably Spitalfields, silk is brocaded with sprigs of coloured flowers on a ground of white and silver stripes. The metal handle is gilt with silver.
Object history
Stated to have belonged to Marion, second wife of Warren Hastings, Governor of India and formerly Baroness Imhoff.

Purchased from Archibald Graham, Esq. in 1938.
Bibliographic references
  • Arts of Bengal : the heritage of Bangladesh and eastern India : an exhibition organized by the Whitechapel Art Gallery in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum : 9 November-30 December 1979, Whitechapel Art Gallery ..., 12 January-17 February 1980, Manchester City Art Gallery ... . [London]: Whitechapel Art Gallery, [1979] Number: 085488047X (pbk.) : p.69
  • The art of India and Pakistan, a commemorative catalogue of the exhibition held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1947-8. Edited by Sir Leigh Ashton. London: Faber and Faber, [1950] p. 82, cat. no. 360
Collection
Accession number
IM.7-1938

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Record createdApril 29, 2005
Record URL
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