MOUNT KISCO, N.Y – Antique fan collectors will find a fanciful grouping of antique fans on Wednesday, June 13, at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, highlighting the Benefit Shop Foundation’s monthly Red Carpet Auction. Absentee and Internet live bidding is available through LiveAuctioneers.
Consigned from a New York City estate, a grouping of around 100 antique folding fans is being divided up among several auctions continuing this summer. The initial offering crossed the block in the May auction.
“This offering came out of the blue and we have been having fun sorting through the collection and amazed at the variety here. There are several fans with bone work, others with feathers, and the details are really what makes these so special,” said Pam Stone, the owner and founder of the Benefit Shop Foundation. “We offered a few dozen fans in May and they performed very well—one sold over $2,000 and two for over $500—and I think the quality in the June auction is just as good.”
From keeping away pesky insects or unwanted suitors, ladies have used fans for centuries. Today, the fans are highly collectible, but their delicate nature makes regular use ill-advised when it comes to the most valuable examples.
In the June auction, equally desirable and beautiful fans, all antique and hand-painted, are represented, including a Boucher French fan ($200-$400) having mother of pearl handles and decorated with gold painted putties, cherubs, birds, castles, etc., measures 21 by 13 inches when open; and a silk and wood folding fan toque fan painted on possibly silk or treated paper, featuring hand-painting on both sides on a silk purple background, Asian figurals, 24 by 14 inches (est. $100-$200).
Several fans are embellished with bone. Standouts include a two-sided fan with intricately carved bone guards featuring flower and leaf motif and painted portraits of royal figures, 9 by 13 inches ($100-$200); a vintage/antique carved bone fan with shaped box panels, possibly faux bone, thin panels with scalloped shaped edges, outer panel is decorated with intricately carved floral details, came in antique paper box with label reading “DUVELLEROY Paris,” 8 by 14 inches; and a fan painted with an Oriental outdoor scene on paper and mounted on carved openwork bone frame, possibly faux bone, having intricate filigree and multicolored, hand-carved open work details, 10 by 14 inches (est. $100-$200).
Highlights from the Benefit Shop Foundation’s May 16 auction included a gilded mother-of-pearl paper fan with hand-painted panels decorated with a garden scene of cherubs surrounding a woman, carved open work, 24½ by 14 inches, selling for $2,032, well over its $80-120 estimate; a hand-painted and carved bone fan with intricately detailed leather box, 31 by 12 inches, probably French, which earned $475, retaining a collectors label reading Cabriolet 1755-1770; and an antique Louis XIV style two-sided fan in its original decorated and lined box, having intricate bone carving and hand-painted decoration, 16½ by 10 inches, which went out at $508.
For more information contact the Benefit Shop Foundation at 914-864-0707.
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