2-798-776 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Spanish ladies, 1845. '...the costumes of the upper classes, in which the mantilla plays its accustomed part. It is kept in its proper place by the fan, abanico, which is part and parcel of every Spanish woman, whose nice conduct of it leaves nothing to be desired. No one understands the art and exercise of it like her: she can express with her dumb fan nearly as much as Paganini could with his fiddlestick, and a hand-book might be written to explain its code of signals. A frulling sound, like the chattering of birds in a cage, reigns in every direction, produced by the tremulous shake, and opening and shutting of innumerable fans of all colours and sizes, so many eloquent tongues speaking an intelligible language to conscious observers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.