A very unusual 19th tortoiseshell fan c 1870’s with purple silk leaf, painted with two Japanese elders, wearing kimonos and obis, one holding a traditional lantern (traditionally used to guide the spirits down from the skies), studying the skies by means of a brass telescope on tripod, and thus noting a dragon and a shooting star, and afterwards, wending away home, a small procession of figures, someone being carried in a sedan chair, the verso plain, the monture carved to resemble a tree branch, guard approx. 11.75 inches or 30cm