Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
August 28, 1792
Primary Source Reference:
Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 28 Aug 1792
Notes:
Chinese women’s shoes and models of their bound feet were ubiquitous in 19th-century museums, and the Peale Museum had a several. The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, acquired many such items in 1899 that may have come from the Peale Museum, some of which are pictured here.
Anne Newport Royall visited the Museum about 1825 and left this description: "The shoe of a full grown Chinese lady, is about the size of a child's of two years old; They have a plate of iron inside, but are richly embroidered on the outside with gold and silver; they are of different shapes, but are all very large at the instep, owing probably to the foot being pressed close with iron." Anne Newport Royall, Sketches of the History, Life, and Manners, in the United States (New Haven, 1826), p. 216
