Vintage Victorian Style Brass Boot Ornaments

Vintage Victorian Style Brass Boot Ornaments.

- Unusual pair of Victorian-style brass boots.
- Beautifully cast.
- Shoes are steeped in custom, symbolic meaning and stories; Cinderella, Dorothy. Shoes were offered as gifts on special occasions in the 17th and 18th centuries often exchanged between lovers as a symbol of good luck in marriage.
- These boots were either made as ornaments, gifts, or vases.

England, circa 1960.

Originally, boots and shoes were made one at a time by hand, often by groups of shoemakers, or cobblers (also known as cordwainers). In the 18th century, dozens or even hundreds of masters, journeymen and apprentices (both men and women) would work together in a shop, dividing up the work into individual tasks.

A customer could come into a shop, be individually measured, and return to pick up their new shoes in as little as a day. Everyone needed shoes, and the median price for a pair was about one day’s wages for an average journeyman. The shoemaking trade flourished in the 18th and early 19th centuries but began to be affected by industrialization in the later 19th century.

Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by Industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or craftsmanship. Today, most shoes are made on a volume basis, rather than a craft basis. A pair of "bespoke" shoes, made in 2020 according to traditional practices, can be sold for thousands of dollars.

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This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance