Page 396

 
DELFTWARE : BootandShoes 
D358. BOOT 
Southwark, London 
Possibly Rotherhithe 
If Rotherhithe, c. 1650-c. 1663 
H.: 6 7/8" (17.5 cm): 
L (toe-spur): 4 3/4" (12.1 cm): 
W.: 2 3/8" (6 cm) 
BODY CLAY: Medium-grained buff, 
TIN GLAZE: Bluish-white, somewhat 
transparent. Overall, excluding footrim 
bottom. 
SHAPE: Molded. Recessed bottom. 
DECORATION: Painted. Inscribed 
"OH.MY.HEAD" Details of boot picked 
out. Straight and curvilinear ornament 
on uppers. 
Published: Home. Collection, pt. 12. no. 322ý 
Grigsby. Dated Longridge Delftware and Slip- 
wore, pp. 882-883, pl. 13. 
1. Much of the inlfrmation in this entry 
was provided by Michael Archer. 
2. Two 18th-century postilion boots with 
two thicknesses of leather and platfuo'm 
soles were sold at Christie's (SK), July 2. 
1997, lot 68. See also Cunnington. Seven- 
teenth Century, p. 155, pls. 74a, 74c, 
Cromnwellian riding boots. 
3. As on classical Roman mnonumnents and 
in printing. (T. shoe inscribed "17 MB 18" 
with ligatured initials, Itpski and Archer, 
Dated l)elltware, no. 1726, and Longridge 
book-shaped hand warmer no. D)354. 
4. See Rasmussen, Italienische Mtjolika, 
no. 171, pp. 256 257, for ancient Greek 
example and the maioltca btoo, both in 
the Museum fur Kunst und tewerbe col- 
lection, Hamburg. 
5. Honey, Glass, pp. 74-124. 
6. Nailer comments (September 1998). 
7. Cuinington, Seventeenth Century, 
pls, 22a, 22c; pp. 82, 83 (boot stockings). 
Iipski and Archer. Dated Delftware, 
nos. 727, 729 (cups). 
his vessel is quite close to the typically wide shape of a seventeenth- or
eigh- 
teenth-century postilion's jackboot, which was made in black leather with
a 
thick sole.' Such boots were very heavy and stiff to protect the legs of
postil- 
ions,2 who spent long hours in the saddle controlling the four or six horses
used 
to pull a coach or carriage. A short spur was attached to the jackboot with
a 
buckled strap, which also had a band of thicker material to protect the ankle
from the stirrup. The buckle tang on the Longridge "boot" points
to the right, 
indicating that it is for the right leg. 
   The inscription on the boot provides two interesting examples of ligatured
(conjoined) lettering' and probably refers to the danger of overindulgence
in 
strong liquor, an ironic reference to the boot's purpose as a drinking vessel.
Ceramic jugs and drinking vessels in the form of footwear are known from
very 
early times, and a circa 1700 maiolica version, probably from Faenza, Italy,
also 
is recorded.' Vessels in the form of boots are more common in glass: some
calf- 
high and other knee-high and leg-shaped examples were made at glasshouses
in Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy in the seventeenth century and in
En- 
gland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.- 
    The dating and (tentative) attribution of the Longridge delftware boot
is 
aided by a recent find of fr-agments of another delftware example during
exca- 
vations at the Platform Wharf site at Rotherhithe (Southwark).' Though perhaps
not fr-om the same mold, the boot has at the ankle a very similar concentric
Vs 
motif with striated edging and similar small scrolls forming one of its border
patterns. The geometric decoration on the fronts and backs of the legs of
the 
boots probably was inspired by the embroidery on the stockings worn below
real boots. On the Longridge example, the motifs are closely comparable to
repeating, concentric semicircles alternating with groups of three strokes
on 
two mugs dated, respectively, 1647 and 1650.7 
396 The Longridge Collection