Bird feather fan

At least parts of this fan were likely made in artisanal manufacturing houses in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The production of imitation flowers made with bird feathers in Brazil rose to international prominence in the first quarter of the 19th century. While previously feather art in South America had been associated in Europe with racist ideas towards Brazilian Indigenous peoples, which saw them as “befeathered primitives”, the importation of birds for the fashion industry in Europe shifted attitudes towards Brazilian featherwork and saw Brazilian artistry and manufacturing being connected with the high fashion houses of Paris and London.

Demand for birds to use in fashion items continued to increase throughout the 19th century, with the style reaching its peak in the 1880s. One London seller declared at the time that he had taken a delivery of over 32,000 hummingbirds in a single shipment. This seemingly ever-increasing demand for exotic birds led to concern for the conservation of bird populations in the wild. In 1889, largely in response to their frustration at the inaction of the male-only British Ornithology Union, Emily Williamson and Eliza Phillips created the Society for the Protection of Birds, an all-women movement intended to put a stop to the fashion industry which was threatening to drive birds from all over the world to extinction. Their campaigning was eventually successful and in July 1921 the Plumage Prohibition Act was passed in Britain, banning the import of plumage and resulting in the formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

(Rosa Dyer, PhD student, Birkbeck College, University of London, in partnership with the Pitt Rivers Museum)