Pair of lace shoes c. 1930 - 1940

Editor: We're looking at "Pair of lace shoes" from circa 1930-1940, currently held at the Rijksmuseum. They're credited to A. van Goethem, and presented in a photograph. They seem very dapper! Very smart and, I don’t know, somehow a little… hopeful? I find it quite affecting! What strikes you when you look at this photograph? Curator: Oh, affecting is absolutely the word. It's the tassels for me. Aren't they perfectly mournful? It's as though these shoes, frozen in time, have a little story to tell about long nights on the dance floor, and perhaps, later, quieter days. What do you think it tells us, that something as banal as a pair of shoes gets preserved in time like this? Editor: That’s a good point! They're not, like, royal shoes, are they? Is it just because they're stylish shoes photographed well, or does it tell us something else? Curator: I think that, especially at the Rijksmuseum, it's about recognizing that the every day *is* history. These aren't the clogs of peasants; there's an aspiration here. A quiet, bourgeois striving. The decorative arts are filled with such stories – tiny echoes of a world lived. Don't you think it's strange that items like that now occupy such a celebrated place? Editor: Absolutely, and that a photo enhances the experience so much. That makes them seem extra important now that they have been 'captured' in time, and in history, to use your word. It sort of adds something special to something normal... Thank you for this reading! Curator: My pleasure! Now if only shoes could talk... what a world of whispers they would reveal!