The Sleeping Beauty

By the 1880s and 1890s, fans were optional accessories. However, they continued to be mass-produced in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and materials. A number of artists and designers working in the Arts and Crafts style saw that the fan leaf provided an interesting surface for design. Phoebe Traquair painted this fan. She was Scotland’s foremost artist in the Arts and Crafts movement and worked in a remarkable range of media. These included mural painting, embroidery, manuscript illumination and enamelling. This fan leaf depicts the story of the Sleeping Beauty. Like many of her other works, it has a mysterious dreamlike quality.