One of London's Best Small Museums
Fan Museum in Greenwich is a Must-See Gem of a Visitor Attraction
The Fan Museum in Greenwich is one of the best little museums in London, an award-winning collection of fans that is unique in the world, with changing exhibitions.
Some of the best museums in London are the small, specialist collections, like the Old Operating Theatre Museum and the wonderful Fan Museum in Greenwich. Most visitors to Greenwich go to see the Royal Observatory, the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Naval College, Greenwich Park, Greenwich Market, and the Queen's House. After those, there's often no time to discover the lesser-known little gems, such as the Ranger's House and the Fan Museum.
The Fan Museum on Crooms Hill is the only one of its kind in the world, housing about 4000 items. In addition to its own permanent display from the best of its collection, there are temporary exhibitions which run for about four months. This is the maximum time that some of the precious and delicate fans can be put on display. Can fans really be that interesting? It sounds an unlikely subject for a museum, but this is what makes it so fascinating. Visitors have never seen anything like it before.
The Fan Museum owes its existence to Hélène Alexander, whose collection of some 2000 fans was put on display in 1991. Since then the collection has doubled in size, and there have been special exhibitions showing fans owned by the British Royal Family, and more recently the Dutch Royal Family.
Fan Muserum's New Exhibition
The Fan Museum's exhibition from 6 June to 26 October 2009 is Fashion in the Palm of Your Hand, a look at the relationship between fan and fashion. In the days of Queen Elizabeth I, the fan was as much of a must-have accessory as the Gucci and Prada designer labels of today. The exhibition manages to bring together Oliver Cromwell and John Galliano, Christian Dior and the fan dancer Dita Von Teese. Fans from the 17th century to the present day will be on display.
The fan goes back even further, though, and is almost as old as mankind itself. The first fans would have been functional, to fan the flames of a fire, and it wouldn't have been long before they were decorated, to look pleasing too. Fans were found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun, and the oldest fan in the Fan Museum's collection is thought to date back to about the 11th century.
One of the fans in the collection was painted for King Louis XIV in 1681, and another was painted by Paul Gauguin. Many famous artists painted fans, usually as a bit of amusement, and the Fan Museum also has fans that were painted by Walter Sickert and by Giacometti.
The Fan Museum also has some attractive Japanese-style gardens out back, with hedges in the shape of a fan. A tree in the front of the building drapes itself fan-shaped against the wall, and there are fan motifs in the tea room, and elsewhere around the building, many of them so subtle it's hard to spot them. The museum shop only sells items that are fan-related too.
Greenwich's Fan Museum is a true London gem, as shown by the fact that it has recently won awards from both Enjoy England and Visit London. In fact, it's fair to say that it's got a lot of fans!
For admission prices and opening hours visit the Fan Museum's website.
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