Une ravissante paire de boucles de souliers en bronze doré et fer, décors de guirlandes et de coquilles.
l: 3.2 cm x 3.8 cm , seconde moitié du XVIIIe s.
Beautiful french shoes buckles
Second half of XVIII century
Every sort of material was used for buckles, the most common being copper alloy and gold-colored pinchbeck. Most fashionable were sterling silver buckles. 18th century trade cards and advertisements show that many jewelers and silversmiths specialized in shoe buckles. During the 1720s, shoe buckles began to get larger, and continued to increase in size until the late 1780s. From the 1740s buckles began to be seen with real and paste stones. Though diamond shoe buckles were worn (a beautiful pair can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London), it was a rare extravagance. Other materials came to be used in imitation of the brilliant sparkle of diamonds, most especially facet-cut polished steel, marcasite, and paste.