Several references are made in this work to the similarity which exists between the éventaillistes and the ceramists. The conditions of production were precisely the same, the workers in the two arts were, broadly speaking, of the same artistic calibre; indeed, it is on record that, upon a shortage of painters at the royal factory of Sèvres, the éventaillistes were called in to fill the breach. At the close of the reign of Louis XV., says Paul Mantz, the most prominent éventaillistes were Chevalier, Josse, Boguet, Hébert, Race, and Mme. Vérité. Amongst the painters, almost in every instance obscure, were doubtless some young artists who had still their position to make, and the signature of Cahaigue is recorded with the date 1766. In the Louvre are two fan leaves signed by Raymond La Farge, _c._ 1680. An ivory brisé fan, with the subject of Blindman’s Buff, signed ‘Tiquet Fecit, 1720,’ appeared in the Walker sale in 1882. Le Sieur Pichard, also, is mentioned in an almanac of 1773, as being very well known as a fan painter; Mme. Doré, at the same date, painted on silk and gauze: both the last-named worked for the éventaillistes.—But the greater names, which have become illustrious in the annals of French art, Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard; is it possible to claim these also for the fan?—A fan bearing the ineffably gracious touch of a Fragonard, what a possession! Lancret painted a picture in the _form_ of a fan, representing two figures in a wooded landscape. M. Paul Mantz, referring to the fan in the collection of Dr. Poigey of Paris, decorated with light simple ornament and medallion heads of a youth and two young girls, says: ‘The delicacy of refined rose tint, the sureness of touch, the free manipulation of the gouache, show a master-hand; of a certainty, if Boucher ever painted a fan, it is this one.’
Balzac (_Cousin Pons_) refers to a ‘gem of a fan’ found at a second-hand dealer’s, enclosed in a little box of West India wood, _signed by Watteau_(?), and formerly the property of La Pompadour. The old musician turns towards his cousin with a courtly bow, offers her the fan of the favourite, saying: ‘It is time for that which has served Vice to be in the hands of Virtue; a hundred years will be required to work such a miracle. Be sure that no princess can have anything comparable with this _chef d’œuvre_, for it is unhappily in human nature to do more for a Pompadour than for a virtuous Queen.’