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Fan with illustration of four Lewes children [realia]

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Description
A folding fan made of fabric and mounted on wooden sticks. Fan includes hand-painted details illustrating a scene of four children walking hand-in-hand. The fan is layered with black fabric on both recto and verso; the recto's top layer of black fabric was cut out into outlines of the children's profiles, revealing a silk layer of fabric underneath that was then hand-painted with varying colors and details. The first child is shown in profile, holding a reticule in hand while leading the other three children who follow. Provenance from the donor suggests that the children depicted are George Henry Lewes's children with his wife Agnes Jervis; based on the family history, however, the children depicted are likely that of Agnes Jervis's with later-partner Thornton Leigh Hunt, as George Henry Lewes did not have any daughters. The approximate date of the item is based on the birth dates of the children.
Type
Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date
approximately 1850s-1860s.
Call number
priPEF 109
Provenance
Gift of Miriam Wu, September 2025. The donor's letter describes great-grandmother, Emmagene Skinner Bagnall (1858-1950) from Santa Paula, California, receiving the fan directly from a Lewes child depicted on the fan. Possibly gifted to Bagnall by Mildred Jane Lewes (1857-1922), who lived in the greater Santa Barbara area from 1900 to the 1920s.
Restrictions
RESTRICTED. Fragile. Available with curatorial approval. Requires extended retrieval and delivery time.
Rights
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining permission rests with the researcher.
Dimensions
36 x 63 cm, folded to 34 x 10 cm.
Find out more
View in the Library catalog(Opens in new tab)

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