Green paper (or glazed calico?) on ebonised wood; English, ca. 1840.

Handle and stick are made of black ebonised wood; the stick is slender with slight turned mouldings. The screen or covering is green paper (or glazed calico?), circular, and works on a loose rivet. There is a green silk tasselled cord for tying. Joined in the middle by two small discs of mother-of-pearl.

Given by Miss Leonora F. M. Preston

Registered File number 1929/10050. From register: "With regard to the little folding handscreen, I remember as a small child in 1860, when I was sent to spend Xmas with some Great Aunts, seeing one very like it in use by one of the old ladies; not as a parasol, but to screen the eyes from the oil lamp which stood on the table (colza oil in those days). There was, rather later, I think, a variation of the same idea in use, in which the circular screen was opened, stood on its own leg in a small weighted cylindrical base, on the table when folded up it retired into the base, which was made of brass. In this variation, however, there was no means of altering the angle of the screen, as in the one you have. I should imagine that 1840 would be about the date. I resuced the screen many years ago from being thrown away with other odds and ends of my grandmother, Mrs. Charles Rogers." From the donor's letter dated Nov. 8, 1929.

T.148-1929