Exhibit Introduction
Chinese Lotus Shoes
Exploring the Cultural Prestige of Chinese Lotus Shoes
April 30, 2025 - September 21, 2025
This exhibition presents an extraordinary range of lotus shoes from the Qing dynasty, highlighting the regional diversity and stylistic variations that existed across China. Alongside the footwear itself, visitors will encounter a rich selection of related materials—photographs, illustrations, sculptural works, shoe samples, paintings, and jewelry—that illuminate the cultural, social, and aesthetic dimensions of footbinding.
While showcasing the artistry and craftsmanship of lotus shoes, this exhibition also confronts the troubling history of footbinding and the societal shifts that accompanied China’s transition into the modern era. Through historical documentation and visual narratives, visitors will learn how shoes were made; how family dynamics shaped the practice; how working-class women experienced footbinding; and how Western missionaries influenced public discourse and led campaigns to abolish the custom.
The exhibition traces the many roles of women with bound feet—walking tightropes as performers, laboring in factories and fields, serving as wives, daughters, daughters in law. Ultimately, this exhibition extends far beyond the shoes themselves, capturing a vivid moment in history when tradition and societal transformation collided.
Foot binding
For more than a thousand years, successive generations of Chinese women endured the painful and exacting process of footbinding. Beginning in early childhood, girls' feet were tightly wrapped with cotton bandages—often by their mothers—to compress and halt natural growth. The resulting form, tiny and arched to a narrow point, was believed to resemble a closed lotus blossom. These “lotus feet” became a revered aesthetic ideal and a powerful symbol of femininity, delicacy, and desirability.
One of the most coveted outcomes of this practice was the “golden lotus”—an adult woman’s foot bound to just three inches or less. Considered the pinnacle of beauty, the golden lotus signified not only aesthetic perfection but also social prestige and refinement.
This exhibition is presented with artifacts from Chicago-based collector Paul Prentice and is curated by Jeffrey Moy.
Programs
Sun, May 25ChicagoExplore the history and impact of footbinding in Imperial China through a lecture featuring Dr. Tee’s firsthand experience with Sun Choi Ngo Chu, who was bound at age seven and later came to the U.S. in 1976 for surgical reconstruction.
Sat, Jun 28ChicagoThe Collector’s Lecture will explore how footbinding was able to flourish in China for over 1000 years due to a complex interplay of factors, including beauty standards, social expectations, and economic considerations.
Multiple DatesFri, Aug 15ChicagoJoin us for a free evening at the museum, including a guided tour of our collection and a special walkthrough of the Chinese Lotus Shoes exhibition led by collector Paul Prentice, featuring highlights from his personal collection.