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Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales
Japanese-style fan with black wooden handle and paper fan leaf.
Black lacquered wooden handle painted with gold paint (sea-scape with rocks + mountains). Handle extends and widens out at the top into a flat paddle-shape. This 'paddle' is hollow between top and bottom, the space accommodating the movable fan section whilst fan is closed/folded.
The fan section consists of two separate units of folded paper adhered and held between outer bamboo guard sticks. The 2 centre sticks are bound together at the top by a purple thread (threaded through holes made into sticks). At the bottom end, the 2 fan sections are held together with purple thread (secured by a knot to stop it slipping through stick). The lower section of the outer guards is split. The split sections are fitted either side of yellow plastic rivets which are fixed on either side of the wooden 'paddle' connecting the upper and lower half (in the middle of the 'paddle' 0.3 and 0.5cm in from the edge respectively). A 3rd rivet is fixed in the centre, c. 1.8cm below the top edge.
To open the fan, one has to pull the movable fan section upwards by the purple thread attached to the top until it is pulled half-way out of its slot (with the rivets sliding along the split in the outer guard sticks until they are stopped by the thread tying together the bottom end); the fan can then be unfolded to either side. It is closed by folding it back towards the middle and then pulling on a pull-cord of purple thread attached to the bottom of the handle (fed through the handle and fixed to the bottom of the movable fan section). This pull-cord has a tassle attached to its end (of purple thread).
The decoration of the paper fan leaf is printed flowers (red, purple, blue and yellow) on one side, and 6 printed Japanese figures on the other side.
There are remains of black-coated paper adhered to the lower part of the outer bamboo guards: the sticks appear to have a residue of adhesive remaining on them which indicates that the paper will probably have covered all of the outside edge of the guard sticks.
