Lot n° 318
Estimation :
2000 - 3000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 2 576EUR
PAIR OF INTERIOR SHOES BELONGING TO EMPRESS MARIE-LOUISE (17 - Lot 318
PAIR OF INTERIOR SHOES BELONGING TO EMPRESS MARIE-LOUISE (1791-1847).
Flat model with square toes, in black silk satin trimmed with a small embroidered flower, and held by two ribbons to be tied on the ankle, lined with fine canvas and kid suede, bearing the handwritten inscription in black ink: S.M.L.P.M.L.
"Sa Majesté l'impératrice Marie-Louise", kid leather insole and leather outsole. These extremely fragile shoes were reserved for indoor wear or balls. They were made to slide on parquet floors and were not resistant to walking. Moreover, according to court custom, they were worn only once by the sovereign.
French work from the first third of the 19th century.
Wear to satin, minor accidents.
Provenance:
This pair of shoes, once owned by Empress Marie-Louise, second wife of Emperor Napoleon I, was given by the sovereign to one of the ladies in her service, Madame Bassais. The latter then gave them to Hector Masel, as the handwritten note accompanying the pair of shoes states: "À monsieur Hector Masel avec prière d'accepter d'une vieille amie de passage un petit souvenir d'amitié la même et pas limp (...)". This pair was subsequently sold by Hector Masel's grandson on December 8, 1925: "Received from Monsieur Sueur, residing at 6 rue Mélingue, Paris, the sum of four hundred francs.
Mélingue the sum of four hundred francs representing the price of a gilded bronze box dating back to Louis-Philippe, ordered by my grandfather and containing various objects (shoes and gloves) that belonged to Empress
Marie-Louise and addressed to my grandfather by Mme Bassais, lady of the court. Also included in this price is a gilded wooden pedestal, for acquired
Th. Potier"
Marie-Louise had a pretty foot and she knew it, as she remarked to M. de Saint-Aulaire in 1814: "Ah! you look at my foot, I've always been told it was pretty". For her shoes, the Empress purchased from Janssen, shoemaker to the Imperial Academy of Music, rue Neuve-des-Bons- Enfants, no. 3. In Les Fournisseurs de Napoléon Ier et des deux impératrices d'après des documents inédits by Alphonse Maze-Sencier, we learn that Marie-Louise's trousseau included "white satin shoes, embroidered in steel and trimmed with a fringe of steel pearls, 40 fr. - Others, in black morocco, white fur, trimmed in red and black ermine, 24 fr. - Travel shoes in black velvet, trimmed in mink tail and cork, 36 fr. - Others in white satin, white fur, open from the front and trimmed in ermine, 36 fr. - Thirty-two pairs of shoes in white, black, pink, green and big blue satin, in white levantine, in white and black taffeta, at 8 fr. a pair, 256 fr.". The three pairs we are proposing appear to be similar to one of the thirty-two pairs described in this book. As for gloves, the Empress regularly ordered from Parisian houses, including Mayer, and owned "sixty dozen gloves bought at 40 fr. a dozen".
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