Shoe Buckle

Gallery 102, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Main Building

Shoe Buckle

1760-1770

Joseph Richardson, Sr. (American, 1711–1784)

Gold shoe buckles were a rare luxury reserved for the wealthiest colonists. William Wade of Philadelphia may have originally owned this buckle and its mate, now at the Yale University Art Gallery. The buckles were marked by Joseph Richardson, Sr., one of the leading silversmiths in colonial Philadelphia, as well as the second of three generations of his family to work at that trade. They are an early American example of the Rococo style, which first appeared in England in the 1730s. The cast and chased ornament exhibits in miniature the full Rococo vocabulary of shells, scrolls, and leaves.

Gallery 102, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Object Details

Title:

Shoe Buckle

Date:

1760-1770

Artist:

Joseph Richardson, Sr. (American, 1711–1784)

Medium:

Gold, steel

Dimensions:

1/4 × 2 1/16 × 1 5/8 inches (0.6 × 5.2 × 4.1 cm) Weight: 1 ounces (0.03 kg)

Classification:

Costume (including accessories)

Credit Line:

Gift of the McNeil Americana Collection, 2005

Accession Number:

2005-68-72

Geography:

Made in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, North and Central America

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Gallery 102, American Art, first floor (Miller/Worley Gallery)

Main Building

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