Shoes

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

While fancy evening shoes were saved in abundance, surviving day shoes are relatively scarce. The leather tip and foxing of these tie shoes was a common style for daywear in the 1840s, and renders an otherwise flimsy and thin shoe more serviceable. The self-patterned cotton provides an interesting textural contrast with the leather. Neutral colors such as tan, brown, and the dull mauve seen here, were favored at the time.

The Costume Institute

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Metropolitan Museum of Art