Conservation around the Millennium (Hungarian National Museum, 2001)
Pages - 102
Description of the object: Morphologically and typologically it is identical to the earlier described shoe of Louis XV’s time where the vamp has a tongue and straps and the arched heel is covered with leather. The one from coffin no. 110 is similar with the only difference that the upper of the former one was made of silk, while that of the latter one was made of leather. The upper of the shoe was cut out in three pieces (vamp and the two quarters) from silk fabric. The vamp was trimmed with copper spangles depicting stylised flowers. A pin was pushed into the upper strap of one of the shoes. It seems that there used to be originally a buckle, but the straps had to be totally spread when the shoe was put on the rigid foot of the deceased. So the original buckle was taken off and was replaced only by a pin. The tongue, the strap and the low-cut throat were hemmed with a 10 mm broad silk ribbon. The ribbon was folded into two and sewn to the leather with tacking stitches. It completely covers the seam on the quarters and at the back of the heel. The lining and the leather that cover the heel were made from natural leather of alum tanning. The convex, slightly pointed outsoles were stained with impurities originating from use, soil depositions and traces of wear. This shows that shoes that had been worn were put on the feet of the dead. These evidences, however, had to be removed from the surface of the sole, since later on they could have deteriorated the leather. The shoe was made on a turnshoe last with in-stitching technique, using two needles. Hidden stitches were used to the start of the heels, from where the leathers that covered the heels were added. Nearly half of the length of the sole is occupied by the heel. The returned edges of the sole was sewn to the leather that covers the heel with butt seam using two needles. The sole leather on the bottom of the wooden heel was obliquely slit a few mm from the edge, and it was fixed to the heel leather with a seam running in this slit. Then the leather was folded back over the slit to hide the seam, which did not wear off during walking. In this case the sole leather was fixed to the heel with one, the sole of the heel with two nails. (Pictures 6, 7) CLEANING AND CONSERVATION, COMPLETION After mechanic cleaning, which mostly meant wiping off the dust with a brush, the object was further cleaned and also disinfected with 0.1% solution of Dodigen 226 in water and alcohol. The shoes were wiped inside and out with cotton-wool soaked in the solution until the cotton-wool remained clean. Since the already weakened textile fabrics and the lining leathers under them became slightly moistened, we prepared temporary shoe-trees from flannel, which evenly sucked up the superfluous moisture. We bound the outsides of the shoes in flannel strips, and dried the textile and leather materials, that stretched to different degrees, smoothed together. After cleaning, the seemingly solid shoe fell apart along the stitches. This helped us to reach the linings and complete them more easily, since the lateral stitches did not fix the quarters, and they could be folded out. Completion was made through basing the edges of the gaps with sufficiently thin goatskin tanned with alum. The counter was replaced since the traces of the stitches could be observed, then folded back the straps and fixed them. The ornament of copper spangles that covered the length of the vamp could be cleaned from corrosion only mechanically. The clean surfaces were coated 102
