Fine paper, ''chicken-skin'' velum and tortoiseshell European fan, probably Dutch or English, circa 1760Paper front leaf, the back leaf in velum, both pierced through with loops to attach the thin tapered sticks.The paper leaf hand painted in Chinoiserie style with a lively scenes of Europeans.Almost certainly a marriage fan, the splendid couple enter beneath a gorgeous scarlet parasol into an extravagent scene of noisy revelry.Musicians with early wind instruments probably depicted playing a welcome or wedding anthem. Dancers and guests, in all their amazing exotic finery are starting to celebrate, whilst charming putti shoot arrows of love from tree top and rotunda.This mid eighteenth century fashion for chocolate brown coloured backgrounds and fantastical mis-matched botanical sizes, parralel the soft furnishings of the wealthy elite, as can be found on embroidered bed hangings and hand sewn pictures of this period.Some light wear to the edge of the leaf, one...