Lorgnette Fan with Love's Arrows motif

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Between the ivory sticks of this fan, the opaque white gauze leaf is decorated with arrow-shaped silver spangles- a device of the period popularly called "Love's Arrows". The arrow shaft motif is picked up by the shape of the sticks and guards, which are decorated with glinting mica. The circular peepholes allow for a magnifying glass to be set in the guard- making this a lorgnette, or "quizzing", fan. A similar fan of American manufacture is also at The Met (Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Edna E. de Frise, 1960).

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art