Shell Creatures

The figure embodies a fantastic beast. The curators of the Collection Museum van Wereldculturen in Leiden, in whose depots the creature resides, refer to it as “dragon” (draak) on the museum’s website.[Cf]. The metal enforcements on the feet of the shell creature in the Dutch museum indicate that it might originally have been fixed to a pedestal for display or intended to be attached to an architectural structure.

In Europe, shell creatures were prominently placed in grottos that formed part of the carefully curated gardens at royal courts. The Florilege de Nassau Idstein of 1660 by Johann Walther (ca.1600-after 1679), for example, depicts a water-spitting dragon-like creature made of shells in the grotto by Count John of Nassau-Idstein (1603-1677). European cabinets of curiosity also included shell-made animals; examples include the image of the famous rhinoceros woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) made of shells.[Barron 2019]

Dragons can easily be associated with China, where they would for example serve as symbols of the emperor, and appear on a variety of artifacts, for example incised nautilus shells. Yet, this creature bears as much resemblance to a dragon as it does to a koala bear; its nature remains unexplainable.