Littell's Living Age/Volume 137/Issue 1768/Japanese Fans
JAPANESE FANS.
During the past few years, Japanese fans have become so popular in this country, that a few brief remarks respecting them and the manner in which they are manufactured — culled from the published report by her Majesty's consul on the trade of Hiogo and Osaka — may perhaps prove acceptable to our readers.
Osaka, we learn, is the principal city for the manufacture of the ogi or folding fans, which are those almost exclusively exported, all descriptions of the bamboo kind being made there; the figures, writing, etc, required for their adornment are executed at Kioto. The prices vary from a few pence up to six pounds sterling per hundred, and occasionally even higher prices are given, though the bulk consists of the cheaper sorts. The superior kinds of fans, it may be mentioned parenthetically, which are termed uchiwa by the Japanese, are manufactured at Kioto, and are extensively used by the better classes of the natives.
The following are the principal features in the account which Mr. Consul Annesley gives of the details connected with ogi or folding fans. As in many other branches of industry, the principle of division of labor is carried out in the fan-making trade. The bamboo ribs are made in Osaka and Kioto by private individuals in their own houses, and combinations of the various notches cut in the lower part are left to one of the finishing workmen, who forms the various patterns of the handle according to plans prepared by the designer. In like manner the designer gives out to the engravers the patterns which his experience teaches him will be most likely to be salable during the ensuing season; and when the different blocks have been cut, it still rests with him to say what colors are to be used for the two sides of each fan. In fact, this official holds, if not the best paid, at any rate the most important position on the staff in ordinary. When the printed sheets which are to form the two sides of the fans have been handed over to the workman, together with the sets of bamboo slips which are to form the ribs, his first business is to fold the two sheets of which the fan is to be composed, so that they will retain the crease, and this is done by putting them between two pieces of paper, well saturated with oil, and properly creased. The four are then folded together and placed under a heavyweight.
When sufficient time has elapsed, the sheets are taken out, and the moulds used again, the released sheets being packed up for at least twenty-four hours in their folds. The next process is to take the ribs, which are temporarily arranged in order on a wire, and "set" them into their places on one of the sheets, after it has been spread out on a block and pasted. A dash of paste then gives the woodwork adhesive powers, and that part of the process is finished by affixing the remaining sheet of paper. The fan has to be folded up and opened three or four times before the folds take the proper shape; and by the time the fan is put by to dry, it has received far more handling than any foreign paper could stand; indeed foreign paper has been tried, and had to be given up, as unsuitable for the work; but with great care the Osaka fan-makers had been able to make some fans with printed pictures which had been sent over from America, though they were invariably obliged to use one face of Japanese paper.
The qualities of native paper now used are not nearly so good as those of which the old fans were made, and in consequence the style of manufacture has had to be changed. Instead of first pasting the two faces of the fan together and then running in pointed ribs, the ribs are square and are pasted in their places in the manner described above. The outside lacquered pieces and the fancy-work are all done in Osaka and Kioto, and some of the designs in gold lacquer on bone are really artistic; but the demand for the highly ornamented description of fans is not sufficient to encourage the production of large quantities of first-class work. When the insides are dry, the riveting of the pieces together, including the outer covering, is rapidly done, and a dash of varnish quickly finishes the fan.
The highest price that was ever given for a fan in the days of seclusion from the outer world rarely exceeded a sovereign; but since the arrival of foreigners in the country, some few have been made to order at prices varying from two to three pounds sterling. The general prices of ordinary fans range from two or three shillings to three pounds per hundred, though an extraordinarily expensive fan is turned out at ten pounds per hundred. The sale of fans in olden times seldom exceeded ten thousand a year for the whole country; but in recent years no less than three millions per annum have been exported from the ports of Osaka and Yokohama alone. In concluding these brief notes, it may be interesting to mention that the number of fans ordered in Japan for the centennial exhibition at Philadelphia reached the large figure of eight hundred thousand, the estimated cost of which was ten thousand pounds, and that these were over and above the ordinary annual export alluded to before.