Nécessaire

Unknown

first quarter 18th century · Wood veneered with tortoiseshell and gold; implements of glass, ivory, and gold · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

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.

Artist

Unknown

Date

first quarter 18th century

Medium

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

Culture

German, probably Augsburg

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Bequest of Kate Read Blacque, in memory of her husband, Valentine Alexander Blacque, 1937