![Solid mahogany bidet from the second half of the 19th century.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/bidet-titel-300x225.jpg)
The bidet – furniture designed for cleansing the ‘delicate parts of the body’
300 years ago, a diverse array of special furniture designed for personal hygiene began to appear in the bedrooms and boudoirs of the French aristocracy. Among these was the ‘cleanliness seat’ – the bidet.
Elaborate 'morning toilette' in the boudoir
![Portrait by Emanuel Handmann, Bern, about 1765.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/morgentoilette-emanuel-handmann-1765-300x289.jpg)
The triumphal procession of the 'little wooden horse'
![Three bidet designs by Jean Charles Delafosse, Paris, around 1770](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/drei-bidet-entwuerfe-von-jean-charles-delafosse-paris-um-1770-300x208.jpg)
A piece of furniture with an erotic component
![‘La Toilette intime ou la Rose effeuillée’, painted by Louis-Léopold Boilly (1761-1845), year and location unknown.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/boilly_la_toilette_intime_ou_la_rose_effeuillee-224x300.jpg)
For many, an object of shame
![Brassaï (Gyula Halász), La Toilette dans un hôtel de passe, rue Quincampoix á Paris, photograph, Paris 1932.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/brassai-la-toilette-dans-un-hotel-de-passe-a-paris-300x218.jpg)