Gloves from the Lequime general store
Source: Weltmuseum Wien, Vienna, 144-854 to 144-879, https://www.weltmuseumwien.at/en/object/1288619/?offset=3&lv=list
The source’s cataloging information is as follows: “The gloves worn by Indians and cowboys were so striking for Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria East that he bought no less than 25 pairs in different places. Their shape reminded him of fencing gloves made of deerskin, but he found the “decorations in bright, embroidered designs” strange, certainly for the cowboys who also wore them.” It also states that “Franz Ferdinand did indeed met the Okanagan First Nations.” This would have been during Franz Ferdinand’s two-year trip around the world.
In BC, he visited Vancouver, Penticton and Kelowna, where he purchased these gloves in the Lequime store. (Ian Burns, ”When the Archduke Franz Ferdinand went hunting in the Okanagan”, April 2, 2019, https://www.kelownanow.com/watercooler/news/news/Okanagan/When_the_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_went_hunting_ in_the_Okanagan
The connection with this historical figure is fascinating. In 1914, 21 years after the purchase of these gloves, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, became the lynchpin for the First World War.