This kind of ceremony fan can be seen in the famous painting of "man-drawn carriage" which is from Yan Liben of Tang dynasty, and the mural painting in Song dynasty of Kaihua temple of Taiyuan in Shanxi . (picture 1-4, 1-5) The kind of feather fan for summer use is the earlier source during the history. At the period of South and North dynasty in Weijing era, "deer-tailed fan", "feather fan" and "long-tailed fan" were disappeared one after another.

    Deer symbolizes the leader of a team, the scholar-bureaucrat always holded the deer tail or its fan to show how calm he was when fighting. Zhu Geliang and Zhouyu were used to direct the army by the feather fan. There is a dancing fairy holding the long-tailed fan, which is extremely similar to the feather fan, like her wings on the stone carved "dancing in the sky" of North Wei period.

    There are some fan images carved on the figure stone in Han grave. Also it has another seldom discovery, for example, on the early of 1950s, the fan images like kitchen falchion distribute on the north wall, which is one of the 16 pieces of figure stone. The mural painting was very popular in Han dynasty. However, the earliest place of fan painted on the mural should be the three ancient graves discovered in Liaoyang area at the early of 1950s, which have the paper fan on several mural paintings. Another sample, it was the mural painting in the grave of Ruru princess unearthed from Cixian of Hebei province, which her grave was built on A.D.550. There are total seven ladies on the north of the mural painting, among which the middle lady looks more fleshy, with the high hat on the head, right hand raising to behest someone do something. The others look comeliness and slender, with the double wispy bun on the head, holding the baldachin, cups and paper ellipse fan.

    Fan painted in the mural of Shaoling princess of Tang dynasty is the earliest one among the entire Tang mural so far, and the fan in the duck's egg was painted on it.

    The fan in the universal story of "calligraphy fan of Wang Xizhi" is hexagonal. "Wang Xizhi's biography of Jingshu" recorded, "When Wang Xizhi was traveling around the mountain, he happened to an old women selling the bamboo hexagonal fan, he wrote five characters on the fans immediately. The old woman has a little angry with this, but Wang xizhi said that she could get one hundred funds after selling the fans. As a result, people rushed to purchase the fan. Actually, there were kinds of shape to the fan in Jin dynasty. Also, it has not only bamboo fan, but also the fan in Chinese palm, which was extremely common at that period. "a person of Jin dynasty has fifty-hundred palm fan, a famous person uses one of them, the fans immediately turn over several times."

    In Tang dynasty, Zhanggu said in his works of "getting the white bamboo fan of Fuzhou as gift", that the smooth and light handle is wrapped by the white rattan, and the exquisite fan sector is made of the thin bamboo strip, just like a layer of silver power on it, and the beautiful flowers showing subtle on it. All of this fan fully show that the facture of the bamboo fan had already got the grade of wonderful article. Actually, this kind of white bamboo fan is the excellent industrial artwork.

    With the development of the silk-weaving technique, the silk palace fan (also called paper fan, silk fan) began to prevail. A lot of well-known person had writen some famous poems about the silk fan, such as the women official in Han dynasty, South dynasty's emperor Xiaoyan, the Tang poets of Liu Yuxi and Dumu, even the Song poem of Wang Anshi. The practicality of the Tang's fan is in the Tang grave of Sinkiang, unearthed some paper fan with wooden handle, silk sector, flowers and birds' pattern on it at present. Later, the figure artist in the period of golden Tang called Zhangxuan painted a copy works with a lady holding the short-handle paper fan. The figure artist in the middle of Tang called Zhoufang had his works of "beauty with hairpin on the head" (collected by Liaoning Museum now). From the painting, we can see a woman holding the paper fan with the peony pattern. Also, Zhoufang has the works of "beauty wrapping the fan" (collected by the Museum of Summer Palace now). This painting is the silk paper with colors, describing the daily life of prince and lady-in-waiting in the court with the total people of 13 persons, some of them standing and wrapping the fan, which the paper fan is with the long handle and a couple of mandarin ducks (collected by Shanghai Museum). However, in the works of "man-drawn carriage", the emperor of Tang emperor is sitting on the carriage with the nine lady-in-waiting around, some of them carry, some of them support the carriage, even holding the fan and umbrella, which have different postures. The fan should be for keeping out the dust and sunshine. In the another painting of "queen doing the luck", the long-handle fan of the sides and the front of the queen also should be for keeping out the dust and sunshine.

Peony Tu with silk tapestry on flat and round fan (Yuan) now housed in Liaoning Museum
22.6cm in height, 26.3cm in width, the cover with original boiled-off silk and colorful spun gold, really interesting for decoration

    One famous picture among the existing works of Guhong of the South Tang artist in five dynasties named "Hanxi holding the evening banquet ". It describes Hanxi with the uncovered breast was appreciating the musician playing instruments while shaking the fan, and a lady-law-waiting aside holding the long-handle paper fan with the trees, mountains on it. If you sum up in some sort, it is not difficult to find the short-handle fan of the host, and the wooden frame around the fan from the pictures of "seven scholars" and "Hanxi holding the evening banquet". Another picture "working" describes a lady fanning the stove exactly with the short-handle, other ladies waiting on the master are using the uniform fan with the long handle, which has been proved already in the mural painting. The fan is changed from round to square along the history, and finally forms the multi-kind.

    Our ancestor used feather, thin bamboo strip and silk as the material of the fans' cover before. With the development of paper making, people began to use paper sticking on the fan. In 1975, a lacquered paper fan with the active handle was unearthed from Zhouyu's grave in Jingxian of Jiangsu province (picture 1-11). The design of this fan is extremely refine with the thin-stick axes, the frame in thin bamboo strip like the mane and the paper cover stuck. The handle is degreased by the black and red color, with more than 10 layers and 2-3cm thickness. Look at the paired Ruyi design with three group double clouds is hollowed out. The lacquered handle and the upper wooden stick are separate, but the middle stick goes round and round without falling off in the lacquered handle set.

    Since Song dynasty, China began to produce folding fans, most of which are made of paper sticking around, and seldom are silk. The earliest practicality in the history was unearthed from the lacquered grave of South Song dynasty in Wujing of Jiangsu province. The lacquer ware of characters, flowers is housed in Changzhou Museum, on the cover, there is a picture of "resting in summer" of one lady holding a fan in her arms, another lady rocking the folding fan tightly (picture 1-13). From this picture, we are sure that folding fan had been popular during South Song dynasty already.

the picture of "maids resting in the garden when summer coming" inlaid in the mirror-dressing case with gold, unearthed from Wujing of Jiangsu province

    However, it was seldom seen of folding fan before Ming dynasty. So some people at that time thought that folding fan began in Yongle of Ming dynasty, and it had rapid development just because Yongle emperor loved it. In the court was the first place of folding fan, and gradually disseminated to local place. The existing ones mainly belong to the middle and late period of Ming dynasty, focus in Shu and Wu regions.

    It was the golden period of fan's development in Ming and Qing dynasties. In life, people and fan have close relationship, such as Kong Shangren "peach blossom fan", palm-leaf fan borrowed by monkey monk of "record of a journey to the west", paper fan torn by Qingwen of "dream of the red chamber". Though all of the characters are fancied, it was widely affected from the side face. Meanwhile, fan and calligraphy and golden paintings have a close relationship. Most famous artists had the best works of the golden painting on the fan handed down, which are Shenzhou, Wen Zhengming, Tang bohu, Qiuying in Ming dynasty, and "eight strange men of Yangzhou", Hun Nantian of Changzhou in Qing dynasty.Except for feather fan, bamboo fan, paper fan and folding fan, we have another plenty of kinds. "new record of fan" of Wang Tingding in Qing dynasty was recorded palm-leaf fan, duck web-footed fan, wheat straw fan, areca fan and cocoon fan which the design of cocoon fan is extremely unique.

    China has the vast territory and abundant resources, the famous fan produced from different regions are without number, among which are the feather fan from Huzhou of Zhejiang province, Yueyang of Hunan province and Ji'an of Jiangxi province, folding fan from Beijing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shaoxing and Jingxian, punka fan from Canton and Fujiang province, palm fan from Dianjiang of Sichuan province, Gong fan from Zigong area, wheat straw fan from Zhejiang and Shandong province, silk fan from Chengdu and Suzhou area, cattle bone fan from Zhaoqing and painting fan from Yangsuo of Guangxi province etc. Since 1930s, the spicy sandalwood fans from Hangzhou and Suzhou areas were sold all over the world. In addition, the folding fans which open and close freely, the elegant silk fans and the exquisite ivory fans were extensively produced in Suzhou and Hangzhou areas, which became the most developed cities of the fan in the whole country. See picture 1-14 is the shop front of Hangzhou fans place. With the rapid development of technology and the improvement of people's taste, some plastic fan, mini fan, hat fan, auto-open fan and light conduction technical fan come out one after the other, which they are all have the special styles and novel materials. We have to say the fan used to enjoy the cool when summer comes is disappearing gradually, however, as a fine art ware, it is always bringing the beauty sense to people forever.