Y PHOEBE ANNA TRAQUAIR (SCOTTISH 1852-1936) FAN, 'THE ISLAND OF THE FAY'

watercolour on silk and with ivory sticks, capped with silvered metal, inscribed, signed and dated THE ISLAND OF THE FAY/ PHOEBE A. TRAQUAIR/ 1889, set within card box (Dimensions: 32.5cm x 60cm (open)) (32.5cm x 60cm (open)) Footnote: Note: In the late 1880s the Irish-born Phoebe Anna Traquair was involved in a range of crafts in addition to painting her second Edinburgh mural cycle at the Song School, St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral (1888-92). In addition, she was working on embroideries and beginning to engage in both commercial book illustration and finely illuminating modern British poetry, notably Alfred Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam. Among her more everyday domestic crafts was fan painting. She first practised it at home in Dublin, winning a medal at the age of fourteen. A few years later, as a student attending the Royal Dublin Society’s art school, a second fan was awarded a Queen’s Medal in the school’s submission to South Kensington’s National Competition. Two later fans are known. The first, dated 1888, was likely made for her personal use as it subsequently passed to her daughter and granddaughter and thence to the V&A in the mid-1970s. Given the title The Sleeping Beauty, it was painted with a scene of a sleeping girl watched by Cupid. Traquair painted this fan the following year. Its subject, The Land of the Fay, was taken from Celtic lore, and gave her the opportunity to explore non-classical imagery. A boat is being steered to Tir Na Nog, the ‘land of the young’. The waters are peopled by mermaids and fish. In design it is unique, although in 1905 she would enamel a stunning mermaid necklace (also in the V&A), and her delight in patterning the swirling waters would soon find reinterpretation in The Souls of the Blest, the second panel (1889-91) of her embroidered draught screen The Salvation of Mankind (c.1886-93 (Edinburgh Museums and Galleries, City Art Centre), and later in her ceiling decoration The Six Days of Creation (1896) in the South Chapel of the Mansfield Place Church (Mansfield Traquair Centre). With thanks to Elizabeth Cumming for her footnote for this lot Note: Please be aware that this lot contains material that may be subject to import/export restrictions, especially outside the EU, due to CITES regulations. Please note it is the buyer's sole responsibility to obtain any relevant export or import licence. For more information visit http://www.defra.gov.uk/ahvla-en/imports-exports/cites/