Chinese Toggle Depicting Shoes

Two deep-mouthed slippers with scuffed, mottled sides and a darker scroll toe.

This toggle depicting shoes is from China, and dates to the 19th century. It is wood. Chinese decorative arts often use objects and their names as symbols, and a shoe or slipper is sometimes read as a pun on wishes for harmony. Side on, a pair of rounded shoe forms with large open hollows and heavy, curled toe caps. The surface is uneven, brown with dark and reddish patches that look rubbed and aged. The lines of the sides are soft and worn. It is 1 inches wide, 1.5 deep and 0.75 high.

Comfortably battered, like shoes by the back door.