The nautilus shell as a liminal object between naturalia and artificialia in seventeenth-century Amsterdam

Abstract

Nautilus shells were highly coveted items in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Shells were imported to the Low Countries via the Dutch East India Company's extensive network from the Pacific and West Indies. In Amsterdam, Europe’s chief market for mother-of-pearl at the time, nautilus shells were ornamented by highly skilled artisans and displayed in curiosity cabinets, where they represented both naturalia (natural objects) and artificialia (man-made objects). The Bellekin family was a small but prolific dynasty of artisans, best well-known for this type of work in Amsterdam. The nautilus shells with floral and insect motifs, made by the Bellekin workshop, will be taken as a case study here. This thesis examines the extent to which decorated nautilus shells were highly appreciated, partly due to being liminal objects, which allowed them to mediate between art and nature, blurring and obscuring the boundaries of the two. Their contemporaries were fascinated with the nautilus shell, not only for its material properties but also for a variety of other features. As I will argue, liminality was only one, but crucial feature that has contributed to the shell’s overall appeal. Furthermore, I will demonstrate how the members of the Bellekin workshop utilized knowledge and skills from diverse industries to alter nautilus shells, and yet, in the curiosity cabinets, these shells in addition to artifice also recalled their natural origins. The concept of liminality allows for pondering how the nautilus shell fulfilled its function as a scientific and aesthetic object in natural history cabinets, how these objects constructed knowledge of the natural world, and how they served to reflect a coherent image of the world from a micro to a macro perspective.