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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

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Nécessaire with watch, Casket: gold and mother-of-pearl, lined with dark-red velvet; Watch: brass and partly blued steel, German
Nécessaire with watch
German
probably ca. 1745–50
Mirror, Johann Valentin Gevers German, Oak and pine veneered with tortoiseshell, silver, silver gilt, and green-stained ivory; mirror glass, German, Augsburg
Mirror
Johann Valentin Gevers
Johann Andreas Thelot
ca. 1710
Toilet set in original leather case, Fourteen identified German (Augsburg) goldsmiths and other German artisans; Japanese (Imari) porcelain maker, Gilt silver, hard-paste porcelain, cut glass, walnut, carved and partially gilt coniferous wood, blind-tooled and partially gilt leather, partially gilt steel and iron, textiles, moiré paper, hog's bristle, German, Augsburg
Toilet set in original leather case
Fourteen identified German (Augsburg) goldsmiths and other German artisans; Japanese (Imari) porcelain maker
ca. 1743–45
Diana and the Stag, Joachim Friess, Partially gilded silver, enamel, jewels (case); iron, wood (movement), German, Augsburg
Diana and the Stag
Joachim Friess
ca. 1620
Rosewater ewer, Johann Erhard Heiglen German, Silver gilt, German, Augsburg
Rosewater ewer
Johann Erhard Heiglen
ca. 1730

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