Figure 1.--

This was a patent leather shoe worn for formal occassions such as a dance. They were not limited to dances. We see boys wearing them as a generalized formal shoe in the late 19th century. Quite a number of studio portraita show boys wearing them. They were also called court shoes. They were not a specifically by'shoe, but also worn my adult men, again for formal occassions. A good example is an American boy, Roy Champman Hodgson, in the 1890s.