Brunette Girl Reveals With A Huge Hand-held Fan In The Yellow Studio

Fans were part of the social status for the Chinese people. A particular status and gender would accord a specific type of fan to an individual. During the Song Dynasty, famous artists would often be commissioned to paint picture on the surface of a fan.
The folding fan was invented in Japan around the 6th to 8th century. It was a court fan called the Akomeogi (衵扇 Akomeōgi) after the court women's dress named Akome. According to the Song Sui (History of Song), a Japanese monk Chonen (奝然 Chōnen, 938－1016) offered the folding fans (twenty wooden-bladed fans hiogi (桧扇 hiōgi) and two paper fans kawahori-ogi (蝙蝠扇 kawahori-ōgi)) to the emperor of China in 988. Later in 11th century, Korean envoys brought along Korean folding fans which were of Japanese origin as gifts to Chinese court. The popularity of folding fans was such that sumptuary laws were promulgated during Heian period which restricted the decoration of both hiogi and paper folding fans. They were made by tying thin stripes of hinoki (or Japanese cypress) together with thread. The number of strips of wood differed according to the person's rank. Later in the 16th century Portuguese traders introduced it to the west and soon both men and women throughout the continent adopted it. They are used today by Shinto priests in formal costume and in the formal costume of the Japanese court (they can be seen used by the Emperor and Empress during coronation and marriage) and are brightly painted with long tassels.
The Chinese dancing fan was developed in the 7th century. The Chinese form of the hand fan was a row of feathers mounted in the end of a handle.
In China, the folding fan came into fashion during the Ming dynasty between the years of 1368 and 1644, and Hangzhou was a center of folding fan production. The Mai Ogi (or Chinese dancing fan) has ten sticks and a thick paper mount showing the family crest. Chinese painters crafted many fan decoration designs. The slats, of ivory, bone, mica, mother of pearl, sandalwood, or tortoise shell, were carved and covered with paper or fabric. Folding fans have "montures" which are the sticks and guards. The leaves are usually painted by craftsman. Social significance was attached to the fan in the Far East. The management of the fan became a highly regarded feminine art. The function and employment of the fan reached its high point of social significance (fans were even used as a weapon - called the iron fan, or tiě shān in Chinese, tessen in Japanese). Simple Japanese paper fans are sometimes known as "harisen". In Japanese pop culture, Harisen are featured in anime and graphic novels as weapons.