PLATE no. XX
Collection of T. Ellis, Esq.

No. 87. Pair of bride’s clogs and leather socks. Damascus.

No. 90. Pair of clogs used by women in Turkish baths, Constantinople.

Collection of Messrs. C. F. Bally and Sons.

No. 88. Wooden chopines for women, inlaid with ivory, as worn at Cairo at the present day. Seven inches high. Made at Bagdad.

Chopines, perhaps the greatest of all monstrosities in feet attire, were of Eastern origin, and were originally worn in Turkey by the ladies of the sixteenth century, and probably earlier. The fashion spread in Europe in the early part of the seventeenth century, and is alluded to by Hamlet in a& ii., scene ~, when he exclaims, “Your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine,” showing that something of the kind was known in England, where it may have been introduced from Venice, as the ladies there wore them of the most exaggerated height. They were made of wood, and some covered with leather of various colours. They were called chapinez, and were never worn with ordinary shoes. Many of them were curiously painted, others gilt. Some attained as great a height as half a yard; as a rule, the higher a woman’s rank, the higher her chopines. The ladies were assisted and supported either by men or women when they walked abroad to prevent them falling, being usually borne up by the left arm. A writer visiting Italy in 1648 speaks of them as “walking May- poles.”

No. 89. Kap Kap. Wood carved. Syrian. Five inches high.

No. 90. Turkish bath clogs.