Nécessaire

first quarter 18th century
Not on view
Fashionable in eighteenth-century Europe were so-called nécessaires de poche (pocket necessaries)—small caskets made of precious materials and fitted with tiny implements for grooming, writing, or sewing. Beneath a mirror-lined cover, the interior of this casket contains an inkwell and sand shaker, pen, pencil, clasp knife, cut-glass seal, snuff spoon, ear spoon, bodkin, tweezers, file, two-leaved ivory tablet, and a patch box.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Nécessaire
  • Date: first quarter 18th century
  • Culture: German, probably Augsburg
  • Medium:

    Wood veneered with tortoiseshell and gold; implements of glass, ivory, and gold

  • Dimensions: Overall: 3 × 3 1/4 × 2 in. (7.6 × 8.3 × 5.1 cm)
  • Classification: Metalwork-Gold and Platinum
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Kate Read Blacque, in memory of her husband, Valentine Alexander Blacque, 1937
  • Object Number: 38.50.1a–r
  • Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

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