Design for a fan

Anonymous, Austrian, 18th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An unusual but rich source for information on gardens, this eighteenth-century fan is as delightful an object to view today as it must have been for its original owner. In a witty way, the fan displays the various entertainments offered in what looks like the prototype of an amusement park, possibly the Prater in Vienna, famous for such public entertainment. The activities one could choose from are shown in all their detail: here couples try shooting targets, there ladies swing high up in a flimsily constructed forerunner of the Ferris wheel, propelled by hand. Other visitors, all dressed in equally exaggerated outfits, walk around pointing at various delights or enjoy refreshments.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art