Coquillages

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Study of Shell
ca. 1715-20
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Kristian Lundstedt
Seaweed and Shells
1922
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Pieter van de Venne
Still Life with Shells
1656
oil on panel
Detroit Institute of Arts

Johann Stephan Capieux
Studies of Shells
1776
hand-colored etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Christian Benjamin Glassbach
Cylindrical Shells
ca. 1770
hand-colored etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Abraham Susenier
Still Life with Shells
1659
oil on canvas
Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands

Jacques Linard
Still Life with Shells
1638
oil on panel
Kunsthaus Zürich

James Ensor
Shells
1889
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Melchior Füssli
Creatures with Shells
ca. 1725-30
drawing (print study)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Basil Besler
Shells
1616
engraving (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Study of Shell
ca. 1715-20
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jost Amman after Wenzel Jamnitzer
Design for Title Cartouche with Shell
ca. 1575
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Pierre-Paul Sevin
Shell as Architectural Ornament
ca. 1690-1700
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Frans Huys after Cornelis Floris the Younger
Grotesque Mask of Shells and Fruit
ca. 1550-60
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Peter Joseph Krahe
Design for Neoclassical Fountain with Shell Ornament
ca. 1783-84
drawing
Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig

Johann Theodor de Bry
Concert in a Shell
1596
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Thou seest the ever-smiling face of Peter the orator, excellent in debate, excellent in friendship. In the theatre whilst looking at the performance he fell from the roof with others and was the only one who died, after surviving a short time, sufficient for his needs. I call this no violent death, but a natural one.

Hail! thou shipwrecked man, and when thou landest in Hades, blame not the waves of the sea, but the winds. It was they who overcame thee, but the kindly water of the sea cast thee out on the land by the tombs of thy fathers.

Damocharis passed into the final silence of Fate; alas! the Muses' lovely lyre is silent; the holy foundation of Grammar is perished. Sea-girt Cos, thou art again in mourning as for Hippocrates. 

Bear not the message, traveller, to Antioch, lest again the streamlets of Castalia lament, because of a sudden at the age of seventeen Eustorgius left the Muse and his unfulfilled hope of learning in Roman Law, and to empty dust was changed the bloom of youth. He lies in the tomb and instead of him we see his name and the colours of the brush. 

The earth covers Eugenia who once bloomed in beauty and poetry, who was learned in the revered science of the law. On her tomb the Muse, Themis, and Aphrodite all shore their hair. 

Eustathius, sweet is thy image, but I see thee in wax, and no longer doth that pleasant speech dwell in thy mouth. Alas, thy blooming youth is now futile dust of earth. For after reaching thy fifteenth year thou didst look only on twenty-four suns. Neither thy grandfather's high office helped thee, nor the riches of thy father. All who look on thy image blame unjust Fate, ah! so merciless, for quenching the light of such beauty. 

– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)