In Praise

In Praise of Oxhorn clams

Oxen made from sand, all vanish in the sea But not their horns. They become clams, filled with colorful flesh

This imperial praise closes off the text about the ox horn clams in The Illustrated Catalogue of Marine Creatures (Fig. 9, top left). It refers to a custom of making oxen from sand at the beginning of spring, to mark the beginning of the harvest. These lines celebrate ox horn clams, but Qing emperors Kangxi and Qianlong (r. 1735-1796) were fond of other particular objects found in nature as well, which they avidly collected (deer antlers, for example, see Fig. 10). They had other items found in nature, for example coral fragments, modified and reframed for display purposes (Fig. 11). [Grasskamp 2016] The Qing imperial collections are in some regards comparable to European cabinets of curiosity, which also include natural objects alongside artifacts and paintings.[Lai 2006].

Shells are a less prominent motif in the history of Chinese painting, but they do appear sometimes, for example in combination with flowers (Fig. 12). The most important Ming dynasty compendium on materia medica, Li Shizhen’s Bencao gengmu of 1578, also shows images of shells.(Fig. 13)