Uchiwa-e

Ovoid images matching the outline of uchiwa were printed on rectangular sheets of washi rice paper, then cut along the margins and pasted onto a skeletal bamboo frame.

[1][2] Unlike folding hand fans, which originated in Japan in the 6th or 7th century,[3] non-folding flat, oval or "bean-shaped"[4] uchiwa were a Chinese import.

In terms of popular usage, uchiwa had a close connection with Edo urban culture which gained momentum during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Folding fans, known as ōgi (扇), suehiro (末広) or sensu (扇子), remained the dominant accessory within the realm of the sophisticated court culture prevailing in Kyoto at the time.

[18] For this reason, art historian Amy Reigle Newland has suggested that uchiwa-e "are probably among the most elusive of all categories of ukiyo-e prints to study and collect.