The mother-of-pearl relief is carved and furnished with ebonized line engravings.

The mother-of-pearl relief was mounted in the lid of the present snuff box, most likely made around the first quarter of the eighteenth century to house the shell. To facilitate a round form, the shell’s natural protuberance was probably removed at this time.

…; acquired, fl. 30, by the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap, Amsterdam, 1880;¹¹Their inv. no. BK-KOG-1658. on loan to the museum, 1922

Object number: BK-NM-13008

Credit line: On loan from the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap

Starting at the end of the sixteenth century, large exotic shell collections were first being assembled in the Northern Netherlands. These natural-historical curiosities could be imported from overseas thanks to the Dutch colonies and trade relations. As a result, cabinets containing these objects were becoming increasingly larger in scale, with the absolute high point occurring in the eighteenth century.²²For shell cabinets in the Northern Netherlands, see E. Bergvelt and R. Kistemaker (eds.), De wereld binnen handbereik: Nederlandse kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, 1585-1735, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 1992, pp. 194-202. The shells were decorated with engravings and reliefs and sometimes encased in a precious metal frame, thus transforming them into treasured works of art.

This large pearl oyster shell bears a scene of three fishing putti, composed of ebonized line engravings in combination with relief-carved figures. Visible along the shell’s bottom edge is the signature of the Amsterdam mother-of-pearl carver Cornelis Bellekin (c. 1625-1696/1711). Bellekin sold his decorated shells as independent pieces for display in a collector’s cabinet, shell collection or Kunst- und Wunderkabinett. Utilitarian objects made of silver adorned with these artistically worked shells – including the snuff box discussed here – are invariably of later date.³³W.H. van Seters, ‘Oud-Nederlandse parelmoerkunst: het werk van leden der familie Belquin, parelmoergraveurs en schilders in de 17de eeuw’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 9 (1958), pp. 173-237, esp. p. 228. Cf. for example the silver box from 1741 in the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, in which a pair of Bellekin oyster pearl shells have been mounted; H. Vreeken, A. den Dekker et al., Goud en zilver met Amsterdamse keuren: De verzameling van het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2003, no. 62. The silver marks on the present snuff box have not yet been identified with certainty. The Y is probably the second quality control mark, punched in the Leiden office in 1795 as proof that the required duty had been paid. Accordingly, this mark provides no indication of the box’s date of manufacture. The other two marks are probably a municipal quality mark and a master’s mark, both applied in Holland to certify small works in silver during the first quarter the 18th century. The box therefore presumably dates from this period. My thanks to Dirk Jan Biemond, RMA. In the present case, the shell’s natural protuberance was likely removed to more readily accommodate the box’s rounded form. By contrast, unmounted pearl oyster shells were generally left intact, retaining their natural, asymmetrical contours (cf. BK-1986-19-A and -B; BK-NM-616 and -617).⁴⁴For two 19th-century examples where the shell’s natural form has been left largely intact even when mounted in silver boxes, see E. Bergvelt and R. Kistemaker (eds.), De wereld binnen handbereik: Nederlandse kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, 1585-1735, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 1992, no. 92.

The Bel(le)quin family of mother-of-pearl engravers originated from Metz and settled in the Northern Netherlands at the onset of the seventeenth century.⁵⁵For biographical information on this family, see W.H. van Seters, ‘Oud-Nederlandse parelmoerkunst: het werk van leden der familie Belquin, parelmoergraveurs en schilders in de 17de eeuw’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 9 (1958), pp. 173-237, esp. pp. 191-237. This family was specialized in the artistic working of mother of pearl with ebonized line engravings (cf. NG-KOG-1655). Its youngest and most important member was the Amsterdam mother-of-pearl carver Cornelis Bellekin, who often combined the techniques of etching and engraving with sculptural relief carving. The shell of the Great Pearl Oyster (Pteria maxima Jameson) was perfectly suited for such purposes, thanks to its ample surface and the substantial thickness of the layer of mother of pearl. In most cases, the shell’s concave exterior was used, requiring first that the outer shell layer be removed to expose the mother of pearl. Georg Rumphius (1627-1702), a natural historian working for the East India Company on the Moluccan island Ambon, explains this process in his publication on shells, in which he likewise addresses other techniques of mother-of-pearl working.⁶⁶Georg Rumphius, D’Amboinsche Rariteitkamer, Amsterdam 1705, p. 61. Cornelis Bellekin was one of the few artists to successfully execute scenes carved in low relief on the Nautilus shell’s extremely thin layer of mother of pearl (cf. BK-1957-18 and -19). He is also known to have decorated a number of ostrich eggs with relief carving and engravings.⁷⁷E. Bergvelt and R. Kistemaker (eds.), De wereld binnen handbereik: Nederlandse kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, 1585-1735), exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 1992, no. 93. Bellekin’s innovative spirit is further exemplified by his invention of a newly devised tool for drilling diamonds, pearls and agate, which he advertised on 2 February 1696 in the Donderdagse Courant, a local Amsterdam newspaper.

In his day, Cornelis Bellekin was the leading mother-of-pearl engraver in the Dutch Republic. This was after a failed attempt to garner success as a painter in Middelburg in the years 1662-63. His peasant tableaux painted in the spirit of Teniers and Van Ostade are subjects also found on his earliest shells. The present oyster shell with the fishing putti – possibly an allegory of Fishing – is most likely of later date, created in the period that Bellekin’s interest had shifted to loftier religious, mythological and allegorical subjects.

Although impressed by Bellekin’s technical skill, Zacharias von Uffenbach, author of the travel account Merkwurdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen, Holland und Engelland, was somewhat less enthusiastic about the artistic quality of his work. When visiting an Amsterdam collector in the year 1711, he remarked: ?Furthermore he showed us […] all sorts of shells, including many beautiful Nautili and mother-of-pearl shells by C. Bellekin, who is the best mother-of-pearl engraver here, carved as they were very purely and beautifully worked, yet the drawing on them was nothing special.’⁸⁸Ferne wiese er uns noch viel schubladen mit allerhand Muscheln, worunter viele schöne Nautili und Perlenmutter Muscheln van C. Bellekins, welcher der beste perlemutter-Schneider alhier gewesen, geschnitten sie waren zwar sauber und schön gearbeitet, die zeichnung daran aber war doch nicht sonderlich.; Zacharias von Uffenbach, Merkwurdige Reisen durch Niedersachsen, Holland und Engelland, Frankfurt and Leipzig 1754, vol. 3, p. 543. Von Uffenbach’s note of critique warrants merit: especially in the depiction and proportioning of his figures, Bellekin’s skill was indeed unexceptional, as can also be observed in the rather rotund putti of the present relief.

This in no way belies the fact that Bellekin’s mother-of-pearl carvings were greatly admired in the Northern Netherlands, represented the most prominent collections. The art cabinet of the Amsterdam merchant’s widow Petronella Oortmans-de la Court (1624-1707) contained a drawer filled with twenty different shells, ‘all carved most masterfully by the famous Bellekin’.⁹⁹alle op het alderkonstigste door den beroemden Bellekin gesneeden; Sale collection Petronella Oortmans-De la Court, Amsterdam (Raket and Zomer), 20-21 October 1707, p. 9, drawer 30. See also p. 19: De Vlugt van Egipten van Parlemoer, konstig uyt- en inwendig gesneden, door Bellekin and the following lot: Een weerga, verbeeldende de Geboorte Christi, van dito. His work was also amply represented in the renowned cabinet of natural curiosities of the Amsterdam apothecary Albertus Seba (1655-1736) and the resplendent cabinet of the amateur (garden) designer and collector Simon Schijnvoet (1652-1727).¹⁰¹⁰Sale Simon Schijnvoet, Amsterdam (Haring and Posthumus), 26 August 1744, p. 1. Sale Albertus Seba, Amsterdam (Sluyter et al.), 1752, drawers 97 and 37, drawer 103. Since 2001, one shell originating from this collection – bearing the depiction of a forest god playing a pan flute, a nymph with tambourine and three dancing children’s figures in a landscape – has been preserved in the Amsterdam Museum, inv. no. KA 20835.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 340, with earlier literature; coll. cat. Amsterdam 2013, p. 76

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'Cornelis Bellekin, Fishing Putti, Lid of a Snuff Box, Amsterdam, c. 1660 - c. 1700', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20037818