Letter of bequest from Mrs THOMAS
Books & Magazines
Inventory number
2023.3.27.1ab.BM.OT.C1880.BEDescription
Envelope containing a letter constituting the will of Mrs. THOMAS-VANVOLSEM, concerning her fan "Vernis Martin" for the first of her granddaughters who will get married.Madame Clara Louise Ghislaine THOMAS, born in 1826, had married Jean-Baptiste VANVOLSEM (1809-1872) with whom she had 2 boys and 3 girls. At the end of her life, she bought in the new English stationery (located at 67, Rue de la Concorde, at the corner of Avenue Louise in Brussels) which had just opened in 1877, this envelope in order to bequeath the one of his fans to the first of his granddaughters to marry. This inheritance was acquired by Marie Claire Pauline VANVOLSEM who married Alfred Jules Marie Joseph Ghislain NERINCX.
What Mrs. THOMAS calls a varnish martin fan is in fact a lacquered fan, of the broken type, of which all the strands are connected by a silk ribbon at its top. However, the "Vernis Martin" name corresponds to a copal-based varnish, invented in 1728, by the Martin brothers of Paris, and imitating the Chinesse or Japanese lacquers very fashionable and expensive on that time. The term was wongly used by fan makers in the 19th century when the Marie Antonette and Versailles trends were brought back into fashion by Empress Eugénie.
Material
PaperOrigin
circa 1880 BelgiumDimensions
Length : 12 cmHeight : 9 cm