The Rape of the Sabine Women: A Good Late 17th or Early 18th Century Wood Fan, the guards lacquered
The Rape of the Sabine Women: A Good Late 17th or Early 18th Century Wood Fan, the guards lacquered and inset with mother-of-pearl. The single vellum leaf, mounted à l'Anglaise, shows the abduction of the Sabine women, a known legend from the early history of Rome. The verso is plain. The Romans invited the inhabitants of nearby settlements to a festival, at which Roman soldiers abducted the Sabine women.
Guard length 10.75 inches or 27.5cm
See a fan on this theme in Fans: War and Peace, the catalogue of an exhibition at the Fam Museum in Greenwich. The entry notes that Plutarch ascribes this as the origin of the custom of lifting a bride across the threshold of her husband's house