The National Gallery of Canada (in foreground, Maman by Louise Bourgeois). Photo: Sam valadi, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa has dedicated one very large display case in their exhibition Canadian and Indigenous Galleries to works from the Bata Shoe Museum collection since the gallery opened in 2017. […]
Detailed Photography for the Creation of a Replica
This pair of miniature replica court shoes were created by Sonia Krause in 2021. On May 19, 2021 the Bata Shoe Museum’s online Salon Series featured Sonia Krause, a doll maker specializing in 17th to 19th century dolls. The evening’s presentation Queens of Fashion: A Conversation about 18th Century Dolls with Sonia Krause was the […]
Boots & Blades: The Research Continues
Manufactured by Douglas Rogers & Company in Norwich, Connecticut, this is a rarely seen example of a style emerging in the mid-19th century. We have three pairs that are of similar style. Collection of the Bata Shoe Museum. Image © 2021 Bata Shoe Museum. As we continue to work on the content and artefact selection […]
Boots & Blades: Research and Planning during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Behind the scenes at the Bata Shoe Museum these days, we are working on a virtual exhibition that will be called Boots & Blades: The Story of Canadian Figure Skating. Launching on Family Day in 2022, it will explore both the artistry and athleticism of this thrilling sport, from its early beginnings in the 1600s […]
Upon Arrival: Accessioning new acquisitions
The cover and inside contents of a doll’s shoemaking kit, circa 1900. Bata Shoe Museum accession number 2020.0053.A-Nxvii. To continue on the Upon Arrival blog series on Collections Management, I’ll write today about how new items coming into the collection at the Bata Shoe Museum are accessioned. This is the next step in processing new […]
New Acquisitions – Versace
Cataloguing involves a close examination of each item. Recording the features of design, history, provenance, material, construction and dimensions are all part of the cataloguing process. Bringing new and important new works in to the collection is an important part of the Bata Shoe Museum’s mandate. This year the museum has been very fortunate to […]
The Great Divide and Collections Management
In August we opened a new exhibition at the Museum, The Great Divide: Footwear in the Age of Enlightenment. The curatorial team had a lot of work to make the launch a success, and some of this work was collections management based. The exhibition features a few new acquisitions, some objects borrowed from the Gardiner […]
Ask A Curator with Suzanne
Last month, our curatorial team participated in the global event, #AskaCurator. In case you missed it, here’s our Collections Manager, Suzanne, answering some of your questions. Where do you keep things not on display? The artefacts not currently on display are kept in specifically designed storage rooms. The storage rooms have environmental conditions of specific […]
From the Vault: Gutal
Take a peek into our 14,000+ collection with our new blog series, From the Vault! Every other week, we’re sharing interesting stories about one of our artefacts. What is the provenance of this pair? When did they enter the BSM collection? This pair entered the collection in 2005. They were acquired for the museum by […]
Upon Arrival: Disposition
The bank of filing cabinets holding information on every single object in the Bata Shoe Museum’s collection. So what does that mean, ‘disposition’? If you’ve been following this blog series on collections management, you know the first steps we take to bring a new item into the artefact collection. After unpacking and handling the item with […]