Postcards were the ideal carrier for messages with easy understandable content for the addressee. Postcards were sent from near and far, about foreign countries and customs, and to convey one's joy about a new experience, new impressions, ideas, loves, or to communicate urgent messages.

The fan as an iconographic element was used in 1001 ways. It left its trace on many an object. Of more or less esthetic value, the fan was always an attractive advertising or folkloristic object, with a touch of romanticism and nostalgia. It made the fan an ideal subject to display within the square frame of a postcard.

The postcard emerged out of the need for simpler and cheaper communication. In the course of the time, postcards became collectibles for collectors and eccentrics, partly of considerable value.

An Anglo-Saxon lady, Lady Dole, a postcard enthusiast, collected throughout her life more than 2000 postcards. Her collection was auctioned in 1998. Some of her specimen gathered a price of more than 500.000 peseta (approx. 3000 EURO).

The postcards on display at this page are a small selection, with different forms and characteristics, depending on the fashion, the time etc. But all have one common denominator: the fan. There is no order in their display, neither chronological nor geographical. But what is more important: they are shown in their timelessness.