Basin with shaving attachment

A basin of this size, which may originally have had an accompanying ewer, was either part of a dressing table service or an independent piece. It would have been used for the daily grooming in the bedroom rather than for the rinsing of hands at the dining table or for display on the sideboard or tiered buffet. During the later seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, the silver toilet set evolved into one of the most fashionable luxury accessories and was an eloquent symbol of the owner’s social status.




This basin was made in Paris in 1745–46 by the silversmith Jean Fauche. In 1760–61, its function was adapted by J.P.J. Duguay by the addition of a shaving attachment or mentonnière. The attachment, which transformed the basin into a shaving dish, slides snugly onto the rim of the basin without any additional fastening device. This broad notched rim allowed the basin to be held against a gentleman’s neck while he was being shaved



Daughter of one of the founders of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, Catherine D. Wentworth (1865–1948) was an art student and painter who lived in France for thirty years. She became one of the most important American collectors of eighteenth-century French silver and on her death in 1948 bequeathed part of her significant collection of silver, gold boxes, French furniture and textiles to the Metropolitan Museum. The collection is particularly strong in domestic silver, much of it provincial, and includes a number of rare early pieces.