Medieval slippers

[sister_raphael]

I'd like to draw your attention to a pair of pretty fantastic slippers in this painting by Hans Memling painted in 1480. These slippers are exactly the kind that we use today, a design unchanged for over 700 years. Of course, slip on shoes have been in use since antiquity, but somehow this image of getting out of a bath, wrapping in a towel and sliding one's feet into indoor slippers is a scene we can recognise today.

The painting shows Bathsheba stepping out of her bath, which has, may I also draw your attention to, the best and most luxurious brocaded bath canopy I've ever seen.

Also of note is a flat brass dish with a wide brass rim on the floor, the type we see in many other manuscripts of women making their toilette and, also found in many modern homes today, a small, fluffy white dog anxiously waiting by the bath for it's owner to finish and just get out.

The painting may be hundreds of years old, but it has a recognisable feel of home today.