Un coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle

From architecture to decorative arts, they arouse the lust of the scientist and the art lover, the aesthete and the curious. This box measures approximately 20 cm in height, 22.5 cm in width and 15 cm in depth.

Decorative Objects

An emblematic element of the Rococo aesthetic, the “coquille”, the shell, broadly refers to the art of arranging shells. This aesthetic is anchored in interior architecture and covers entire walls, as is the case in the Chaumière aux coquillages, a marvelous factory built between 1770 and 1780 for the Princess of Lamballe in the Rambouillet estate. This decoration is also found in artificial caves, as well as on decorative art objects. Far from being solely appreciated for their pearly hues and undulating shapes, shells are a perfect object of admiration and discussion. Their artistic and scholarly arrangements attract the attention and interest of a whole range of personalities, from the scientist capable of identifying species to the painter admiring the palette and lines .
Ces curieuses créations du XVIIIe siècle sont ainsi de charmants témoins of an era in the midst of a scientific and cultural revolution.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

Thus, from the high aristocracy to the bourgeoisie, shell collecting and conchology are a fashionable pastime. This interest indicates by its very modernity a rank, a state of mind that skillfully blurs the strict social categories of the Ancien Régime. Faced with the scientific object, the case study, only the capacity for observation and analysis, the relevance of hypotheses and the extent of knowledge count. Faced with such criteria, the particle no longer guarantees having the last and (good) word. The Age of Enlightenment ventures into a leveling of society by merit and culture, of which the 19th century will be the rich heir.

This curiosity for natural history was not new. The Renaissance had already placed it in majesty in superb cabinets of curiosities where the supernatural rubbed shoulders without difficulty with a natural that was no less mysterious. The narwhal teeth that had become unicorn horns by a sleight of hand had nothing to envy from beautiful nautiluses all adorned with gilded bronze. From time to time, attentive observation and study brought to light the true nature of the world. Oddities lost their mystery, but retained an intact prestige, surrounded by the rarity of exotic products. In the first half of the 18th century, the shell collection of Joseph Bonnier de la Mosson, a wealthy financier and banker of the court (1702-1744), was undoubtedly one of the most important in Paris. Our man exhibited them everywhere in his home and in every possible way. From architecture to furniture to decorative objects.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

The Art of Accumulation

However, the shells are not placed on walls or objects without some thought. They are carefully arranged in a taste that is typically French, a style guided by numerous writings that guide the collector through the different steps necessary for exhibiting his shells.

These learned recommendations nevertheless all encourage entrusting this meticulous preparatory work to specialists in the trade, ideally tabletmakers or – rarer – competent craftsmen in turning coral. To the collector the intellectual considerations, to the craftsman their manual practical application.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

Usually, the shells are first gently cleaned. Their surface is polished and regularly covered with colorless natural wax to increase the shine and brighten the colors and reflections of the mother-of-pearl.

Because if the brilliance of the art of the shell is important, it must also allow the naturalist, scholar or amateur, to identify the species, as they would appear under the luster of the water. It is therefore necessary that the craftsman be skilled in highlighting the properties of the shell and sufficiently learned (or well guided) to arrange them on an object, according to their interest, their rarity or their natural beauty. Following this habit, the craftsman has therefore crowned the center of our box with a cypraecassis rufa (a red helmet), arranged in such a way that it is immediately identifiable. This shell, very abundant in the Indo-Pacific zone and in the Indian Ocean is then particularly admirable from this distant origin.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

As with many art objects decorated with shells in the 18th century, the species compose an almost systematically exotic decor. Thus, this box is still adorned with cittarium pica (which are fished in quantity along the coasts of Central and South America), shells of the conus variety (South African coast and Mediterranean), a white mitra-mitra with orange spots (fished in the Indian Ocean or in the Pacific), cypraea (Asian seas), yellow and purple cowries (Indo-Pacific region), as well as a variety of small, fine and colorful shells. The Dutch were specialists in the trade of this type of product at the time. Their maritime power gave them a vast fishing and harvesting area in the warm waters of the globe. With Amsterdam establishing itself as a major import centre in Europe, this trade, which is little known today, nevertheless proved to be very lucrative.

Coffret coquille d'époque XVIIIe siècle dans la goût baroque.

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Our box is thus very representative of this learned art of the shell. Moreover, it follows another whim of the 18th century which appreciates the arrangement of shells in the manner of French gardens. The symmetry and the patterns are in fact those of the flowerbeds arranged in the shapes of suns, circles, stars or rays). Larger creations similarly arrange sections of walls or furniture into methodical and conchological tableaux.

Dezallier d’Argenville (1680 – 1765), French naturalist, collector and art historian, summarises this art aimed at a wide audience and bringing together all the interests which marked and constituted an important part of the cultural wealth of the 18th century:

Shells are the object of research of two different sorts of persons; I mean Physicists and the Curious. The aim of the former, in possessing them, is to study their cause, principle and consequences (…). The latter seek them only (…) for relaxation, and to procure an agreeable glance by observing the variety of forms and colours with which they are adorned. I do not, however, pretend to say by this that the sole motive of the Curious, in acquiring curiosities, is amusement, and that the Physicist has only study in view, and does not count the recreation of the eyes for anything; but only that the agreeableness which is found there is only accessory for the Physicist, as study and research are for the Curious.

Marielle Brie de Lagerac Historienne de l’art pour le marché de l’art et les médias culturels. Author of the blog L’Art de l’Objet

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