Renaissance cup in the form of a
Gothic pointed shoe

South German, dated 1567
Dated ‘1567’ on the heel mount
Leather; copper, fire-gilt and engraved
Height 10 cm, width 18 cm

Provenance: Ferdinand Edouard, Baron von Stumm (1843–1925)

What at first sight looks like a Gothic shoe with a bell tied to the exaggeratedly pointed tip is actually a drinking vessel made for drinking toasts to welcome a guest. The numerals 1567, engraved on the rim of the copper mount indicate when this extremely unusual vessel was made. This is one of the very few Renaissance shoe cups hitherto known from the sixteenth century. Sixteenth-century drinking vessels in the form of pointed shoes are, in fact, extremely rare. Hence a brief look at the few similar cups in this form is called for. They are held by the Bally Schuhmuseum in Schönenwerd, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, the Fowler Museum in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Rudolf August Oetker Art Collection in Bielefeld. Cups in the form of pointed shoes are known to have been used as drinking vessels in shoemakers’ guilds on ceremonial occasions. But they were also used as wedding cups. In fact, shoes have been symbolically associated with wooing and nuptials since time immemorial. The custom of giving shoes as wedding presents is recorded as long ago as the sixth century AD. At that time the shoe was regarded – as the ring still is – as the sign of legally binding marriage. The custom of drinking from a bridal shoe is also recorded.