Fan

Some of the finest surviving tourist fans have subjects based paintings rather than architecture. The central vignette of this Italian fan comes from a fresco by Raphael at the Villa Farnese on the Palatine Hill. It shows Venus ordering Cupid to punish Psyche for her vanity. The vignettes on each side are based on images of dancing nymphs found on wall paintings at Herculaneum. This was a Roman town buried under volcanic ash in 79 AD. Archaeologists discovered the remains in 1738. Illustrations of them appeared in a variety of books from the late 1750s through the 1770s. These images of 1st-century Roman designs were very influential on the development of the Neo-classical style in Europe in the late 18th century.