Cow mouth shoe

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Jörg Breu the Elder , Depiction of a Landsknecht , around 1500

The cow's mouth shoe , also called ox or cow's mouth , is a form of shoe that was worn by men and women in Europe in the early 16th century . Cow mouth shoes were only in vogue for a short time.

History and description

In fashion history, the cow-mouth shoe replaced the narrow beaked shoe or the so-called “duck bill ”, which protruded several centimeters above the wearer's foot and was mostly made of blackened leather. In contrast to the beak shoes, cow mouth shoes were wide and flat; some specimens were fastened over the instep with a clasp. Albrecht Dürer made two drawings around 1500 in which he explained the cut of the cow's mouth shoes. These works by Dürer are in the British Museum under inventory number W.938 and in the Sloane Collection under number 5218-200. A preserved copy of a cow's mouth shoe is in the Weißenfels Museum in Neu-Augustusburg Castle . This shoe is made of black leather and has no heel; the tip is decorated with longitudinal cut strips. Because of its narrow shape, it is believed that the 26.2 centimeter long shoe was worn by a woman. Cow's mouth shoes are often found in pictorial representations, e.g. B. on a donor picture of the shoemaker's guild from the Nikolaikirche in Berlin , which is now in the Marienkirche . The subject of the picture is the capture of Christ ; In this picture, a mercenary from around 1520 is clearly wearing cow's mouth shoes.

No distinction was made between a right and a left shoe in the cow's mouth shoe. Cow's mouth shoes were usually provided with slits and let the colored stockings come into their own.

In the work History of Forms of European Clothing, Annemarie Bönsch derives the clear change in shape of footwear at the time of the Renaissance compared to the late Gothic from the new awareness of this era. Instead of transcendent topics, the research and use of this world were in the foreground, man strived for “constructions that result in clear, manageable facts” and also tried to “express the positive relationship to this world, the connection with this world bring ". Therefore, instead of the Gothic vertical, the horizontal has now become the decisive line in clothing and shoe fashion - a “repetition of the earth plane.” The flat beret , the extra-wide shoulder line, the transverse waist line, the accentuated garment hems and also the cow-mouth shoes went off bear witness to this orientation.

See also

Commons : Duckbill shoes  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The orthopedic care of the foot . Georg Thieme Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3-13-486603-2 , p. 204.
  2. ^ Ivonne Huebner : "Devil's Color": a historical novel . Dryas Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-9811327-2-4 , p. 470.
  3. ↑ Jane Campbell Hutchison: Albrecht Durer: A Guide to Research . Routledge, 13 May 2013, ISBN 1-135-58172-X , p. 87.
  4. ↑ Single cow's mouth shoe on www.museum-digital.de
  5. ↑ Founder pictures after 1500 and Reformation painting on donor pictures from the 16th century , on www.patrizier-marienkirche-berlin.de ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.patrizier-marienkirche-berlin.de
  6. ↑ Frankfurt am Main (Germany). Department of Culture and Leisure: Bridge between the Nations, on the history of the Frankfurt Fair: Exhibition on the history of the Frankfurt Fair . Department for Culture and Leisure, 1991, ISBN 978-3-89282-021-5 , p. 172.
  7. ^ Annemarie Bönsch: History of forms of European clothing . Böhlau Verlag Vienna, 2011, ISBN 978-3-205-78610-8 , p. 122.