Past News and Events

ZOOM -Souvenirs of Splendour – a journey through fans and fan makers of Imperial Vienna

Online talk – Thursday 16th October 2025

Join us on Zoom on Thursday 16th October 2025 at 7 p.m. (19.00) UK time.Margaretha Mazura, a Viennese fan collector with internationally recognised knowledge of the Viennese fan industry will talk on the subject “Souvenirs of Splendour – a journey through fans and fan makers of Imperial Vienna”To register for the talk (tickets are £5.00), please click the following – https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/ZFX979NM2UEYG

The Zoom link will be circulated shortly before the talk.

Birds of a Feather (18th June – 13th September 2025) at The Fan Museum, Greenwich, London

Birds of a feather explores the fascination for birds as a source of decoration and embellishment on fans in many cultures around the world for millennia. Birds are depicted strutting around, caught in mid-air and resting on branches, in charms or in solitude. Familiar birds like swallows and ducks are featured, while hummingbirds and macaws provide glimpses of faraway lands. Serving both functional and decorative purposes, feather fans and those adorned with bird images were popular accessories for balls and other formal events.

Sadly, birds were killed extensively for fashion purposes, especially in the nineteenth century, and with fans depicting a range of use of common and exotic birds as illustrations or their whole bodies and parts, this exhibition aims to discuss the carnage and craftmanship as seen between fashion and birds.

For more information see https://www.thefanmuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/birds-of-a-feather

The Magical World of Fans

West Bohemian Museum, Pilsen, 25th November 2022 – 26th February 2023

The exhibition presents a set of 80 historical objects from the collections of the West Bohemian Museum in Pilsen, the Central Bohemian Museum in Roztoky near Prague and from private collections. The concept of the exhibition broadly recalls the historical development, production and basic distribution of fans. As for the exhibits themselves, the 19th century is most represented here. Presented are both luxury branded fans, but also the more common ones, the so-called sibrínko fans. There are also several samples of patent constructions from the second half of the 19th century or feather fans in different color variants. The exhibition also includes essential women’s accessories, i.e. handbags, dance routines, toiletries, hat pins or powder cases.

For more information see

https://zcm.cz/pro-navstevniky-zcm/kalendar-akci/carovny-svet-vejiru