The Plastic Shell

About the project

Mother-of-pearl is iridescent, nonporous, lightweight and chemically inert. The material is exceptionally manipulable, or plastic. Its combination of properties was rare in a single substance and impossible to replicate in the early modern period. With direct access to mother-of-pearl via the Dutch East India Company (VOC), European craftspeople took advantage of the properties of the shell to invent dynamic artworks, integrating it into a continuum of objects: from carved mythological scenes to still-life paintings, and from panel inlays to engraved snuffboxes. This material-centred study of objects in the Rijksmuseum collection links European extraction of unprocessed resources, experimental craft methods, and the development of material knowledge in the global Dutch world.

Aim of the project

This project examines artworks by renowned 17th-century mother-of-pearl carvers Cornelis Bellekin and Dirck van Rijswijck, alongside unsigned objects and archival sources. It contextualizes these understudied works in current scholarship on the global circulation of materials, and the intersections of craft with broader networks of intellectual discourse. By resituating mother-of-pearl as a commercialized resource, a researched specimen, and an artistic medium, this research aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of the impact of raw materials on early modern European craft.

Related publications

• Brittany Luberda, Sophie Tunney, Sarah R. Cohen. ‘Raw Movement: Material Circulation in the Colonial Eighteenth Century.’ Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 52 (2023): 383-419.
• ‘Manipulating Mother-of-Pearl: an Eighteenth-Century Coque de Perle Bracelet,’ The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust (Winter 2022-23).

Partners and Sponsors

Mellon Foundation