A Charles X sewing casket

A light wood little sewing casket decorated with hammered nails, containing a mirror and a mother-of-pearl sewing necessary hiding the double bottom of the casket.
The toilets necessaire were developed around the 15th century, they were called “case”.
In the 17th century, the word cassette supplanted the name case. The term necessaire was finally used during the Regence.
In the 18th century the notion of necessaire is well defined. We can notice it thanks to the book of Roubo, l'Art du menuisier, published in 1772 : the author gave detailed instructions for the realization of a necessaire : we learn for example that boxes toilet known as the Necessaire, are small boxes or wooden caskets, used to tighten the toilet utensils, and to carry them to travel…
Gradually the definition of necessaire became wider : a necessaire eventually encompassed in the same wood casket all the objects used for the toilet, for lunch, for writing, for sewing and even for doing mathematics.
Under the Second Empire, sewing, embroidery, drawing and painting necessaires were popular among girls but also among their mothers, they appreciate the refinement and luxury of these necessaires now integrated into their daily lives. In the 19th century, the multiplication of embroidery necessaires, sometimes small but often extremely luxurious demonstrates a real flooding of feminine leisure in the aristocratic and bourgeois world.


Bibliography:Musée National des châteaux de Malmaison et de Bois-Preau, 24 octobre - 14 janvier 2008, Indispensables nécessaires