Shoe Icons Museum Have Acquired an Important Pair of Late Baroque Ladies Mules from The Hearst Collection, French or English, c. 1690-1720

In spring 2006 I was looking through the catalogue of the Charles Whitaker Auction (www.whitakerauction.com) and noted a pair of late 17th – early 18th century mules with fine silver embroidery on the vamp and red Moroccan leather heel. We have quite a few pairs of 18th century shoes, but in the three years of collecting shoes mules never came my way. In due time I placed a bid on them and was waiting, waiting, waiting.

The auction day came and a late night call from Moscow, Russia, left me disappointed for rest of the night. I knew it was a game and it is fun when you win, but when you loose …

I did not know who was the happy winner: museum, private collector or antique dealer. The only thing that supported me that night was the hope that some day I might see them offered by some antique dealer on the Internet.

Five months after the auction, I was browsing internet for some new shoes, thinking that I know virtually every place on the web, which is at least to some extent related to shoes. It came as a complete surprise, when I stumbled on a very interesting site at www.silvermineantiques.com and on the first page I opened were the shoes I was thinking about for several months.

I was lucky to discover these mules just a few weeks before they were ready to be sent to Christie’s, London. Then followed two weeks of negotiations with the owner and after all the financial matter were agreed upon, I acquired not only this rare pair of shoes, but also a new friend, who shares the same passion for historic shoes. I am very grateful to Maureen and Drew Mayer for their kind decision to part with the shoes in favor of our Virtual Shoe Museum.

We are proud to add this very rare surviving pair of ladies shoes from the late 17th- century to the Shoe Icons Virtual Museum. These shoes clearly reflect the sentiments of the age. They have the aristocratic red heels that were all the rage, elaborate metallic embroidery, and a highly sculptural shape from the “cupid bow” vamps, to the steep, curved heels. Their complex form would have been well suited to the complex, highly structured social arena of Versailles.

The label at bottom of one shoe suggests they come from the collection of William Randolph Hearst. Part of his vast art collection was sold in Gimbels and Sax Fifth Avenue in 1939-1941. The advert published in The New York Times in February 1941 announced that the treasures from the Hearst collection are sold “for a fraction of its original cost”.

Later these shoes were in the Traphagen School of Fashion in New York City, along with a vast international costume and jewelry collection, and more than 1,000 dolls. The school, which included an exhibition gallery, was founded in 1923 and was the first-ever fashion school and closed on the beginning of 1990s.

Very soon the shoes will undergo the restoration and preservation measures to prevent the silk decay, which will be performed by an experienced team of restorers from the Kremlin Museum.