Exploding volcanoes, mock naval battles, bullfights and more are subject matter for the delicate fans and artworks picturing fans in the Met Museum’s absorbing exhibition ‘Fanmania.’ Here, Belgian artist and friend to Degas, Eva Gonzales, Berthe Morisot, Manet and other major 19th century Parisian painters Alfred Stevens pictures a well-heeled young beauty in a bourgeois living space – the kind of subject matter that made him successful. Dressed in a Japanese kimono in a style adapted to French tastes and holding a fan, the figure demonstrates Stevens’ attraction to Japanese art and decorative objects, which he collected from the late 1850s. (On view at the Met Museum through May 12th).
