Fan 1820 - 1830

This is a fan painted by Dubois, held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The fan’s structure divides into three distinct visual fields that converge in the fan’s lower central portion: the ribs, the narrative scene, and the upper decorative frieze. The narrative scene, featuring figures arranged around a monument, is framed by a landscape, which itself is split into three clear horizontal bands of ochre, green and blue, dividing it into foreground and background. The figures’ clothing creates dynamic vertical blocks of red and blue. This is contrasted with the light pinks and greens used in the decorative frieze, which is punctuated with stylized gold floral motifs. The fan's structure challenges fixed meanings by blending portraiture, landscape and decorative elements into one object. Its formal qualities – color, composition, and line – function aesthetically and as part of a larger cultural discourse around representation and display. A fan, however, remains a site of ongoing interpretation.