Scientific Symmetries

The publication history of this work is complex. The first edition was d'Argenville Antoine-Joseph Dezallier , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie dans deux de ses parties principales, la Lithologie et la Conchyliologie, dont l'une traite des Pierres et l'autre des Coquillages, Ouvrage dans lequel on trouve une Nouvelle méthode & une notice critique des principaux Auteurs qui ont écrit sur ces matiêres (2 vols, Paris, 1742); further editions, entitled Oryctologie …, and containing the lithology alone, subsequently appeared. The second edition of the conchological part alone was also separately published, first as L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie dans une de ses parties principales, la Conchyliologie, qui traite des coquillages de mer, de rivière & de terre … augmenté de la Zoomorphose, ou représentation des animaux à coquilles (Paris, 1757), and in a third, posthumous edition, entitled La Conchyliologie, ou Histoire naturelle des coquilles de mer, d'eau douce, terrestres et fossiles, avec un traité de la zoomorphose, ou représentation des animaux qui les habitent (3 vols, Paris, 1780). For a characteristic expression of the tension between the ornamental and the scientific in natural history illustrations, see Knight David , “Scientific theory and visual language”, in Ellenius Allan (ed.), The natural sciences and the arts (Uppsala, 1985), 106–24.

See also Sutton Geoffrey V. , Science for a polite society: Gender, culture, and the demonstration of Enlightenment (Boulder, 1995). While at first sight Samuel Edgerton's account of the importance of perspectival geometry in enabling the “scientific revolution” might seem analogous to my own, Edgerton's model is ultimately reductionist, for he appeals to twentieth-century scientific studies to prove the naturalness of perspectival ways of seeing. See Edgerton Samuel , The heritage of Giotto's geometry (Ithaca and London, 1991), Introduction.

In utilizing the expression “design”, I wish to distance myself from traditional forms of analysis of works of art in terms of intentionality and attend more closely to the joint problems of interpretation and conventions of representation. Such an approach derives from my reading of recent work on the history of the book and related issues. See Chartier Roger , Cultural history (Cambridge, 1988), Introduction, and Fish Stanley , Is there a text in this class? (Cambridge, Mass., 1980). Shapin Steven , “Cordelia's love: Credibility and the social studies of science”, Perspectives on science, iii (1995), 255–75, and A social history of truth (Chicago, 1994), and Lipton Peter , “The epistemology of testimony”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxix (1998), 1–32, both emphasize the dependency of testimony, in scientific truth as well as elsewhere, upon locally constructed models of trust.

Barthes Roland , The fashion system (New York, 1983); idem, “Bild, Verstand, Unverstand”, in Berger Günter (ed.), Enzyklopädie (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1989), 30–49; Stewart Philip , Engraven desire (Durham and London, 1992); Gombrich E. H. , The sense of order (Ithaca, 1979); idem, “Image and code: Scope and limits of conventionalism in pictorial representation”, in Steiner Wendy (ed.), Image and code (Ann Arbor, 1981), 11–42; Bassy Alain-Marie , “Du texte à l'illustration: Pour une sémiologie des étapes”, Semiotica, xi (1974), 297–334; idem, “Iconographie et littérature: Essai de réflexion critique et méthodologique”, Revue française de l'histoire du livre, iii (1973), 3–33; Guillerm Alain , “Le systême de l'iconographie galante”, Dix-huitième siècle, xii (1980), 177–94; and Labrosse Claude , Lire au XVIIIe siècle (Lyon, 1985), chap. 8. See also Spary E. C. , “Codes of passion: Natural history specimens as a polite language in late eighteenth-century France”, in Reill Peter Hanns Schlumbohm Jürgen (eds), Wissenschaft als kulturelle Praxis, 1750–1900 (Göttingen, 1999), 105–35.

Latour Bruno Woolgar Steve , Laboratory life (London, 1979); Shapin Steven Schaffer Simon , Leviathan and the airpump (Princeton, 1985); and Shapin Steven , “The house of experiment in seventeenth-century England”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373–404.

Bourdieu Pierre , Distinction (London, 1994), 11, and Haskell Francis , Rediscoveries in art (Oxford, 1976), chap. 1.

This is an issue beginning to be redressed in recent works by art historians and historians of science, works that explicitly attend to the conventions of ‘naturalistic’ representations in scientific illustrations. See, for example, Kemp Martin , “The mark of truth': Looking and learning in some anatomical illustrations from the Renaissance and eighteenth century”, in Bynum W. F. Porter Roy (eds), Medicine and the five senses (Cambridge, 1993), 85–121; Jordanova Ludmilla , “Gender, generation and science: William Hunter's obstetrical atlas”, ibid., 385–412; and Dennis Michael Aaron , “Graphic understanding: Instruments and interpretation in Robert Hooke's Micrographia”, Science in context, iii (1989), 309–64. For the most part, however, little attention is paid to the scientific significance of the iconographic traditions identifiable within the plates in the interpretation of such images. By contrast, the problem of the authority of illustrative traditions in natural history is particularly well treated by Ashworth William B. , “The persistent beast: Recurring images in early zoological illustration”, in Ellenius (ed.), The natural sciences and the arts (ref. 1), 46–66. Ashworth effectively rebuts the claim that external “nature could supply uncontested standards for evaluating the scientificity of such illustrations”. For my own earlier take on the problems of authenticating representation in natural history illustrations, specimens and models, see Spary , “Codes of passion” (ref. 4), where I deal in more detail with the problem of disciplining observers; also idem, “Forging nature at the Republican Muséum”, in Daston Lorraine Pomata Gianna (eds), The faces of nature in Enlightenment Europe (Berlin, 2003), 163–80.

The convention is very widespread, but cf, for example, the egg plates in Hollom P. A. D. , The popular handbook of British birds (London, 1962). For a good demonstration of the persistence of symmetrical conventions in conchologies until their replacement by less ornamented geometrical arrangements, see Dance S. Peter Heppell David , Classic natural history prints (London, 1991).

Buonanni's title was paraphrased by many later writers; the Latin translation of 1684, Recreatio mentis et oculi, was probably the most widely-read edition. The notion of a “recreation for mind and eye” epitomizes the conjunction of instruction and entertainment which nineteenth- and twentieth-century commentators found it hard to treat as a seriously scientific endeavour.

du Molinet Claude , Le cabinet de la Bibliotheque de Sainte Geneviève (Paris, 1692). Shells were present in French collections from at least the early decades of the seventeenth century; see Schnapper Antoine , Le géant, la licorne et la tulipe (Paris, 1988), 75–76; on du Molinet as collector, ibid., 283–6.

On emblematic natural history, see Ashworth William , “Natural history and the emblematic world view”, in Lindberg David Westman Robert (eds), Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1990), 303–32. For depictions of non-symmetrical collections, see Imperato Ferrante , Dell'historia naturale, di Ferrante Imperato, libri XXVIII, nella quale ordinatamente si tratta della diversa condition di miniere, epietre (Naples, 1599); Worm Ole , Museum Wormianum, seu Historia rerum rariorum, tam naturalium, quam artificialium, tam domesticarum, quam exoticarum, quae Hafniae Danorum in aedibus authoris servantur (Leiden, 1655). Possibly the first representation of a cabinet in which specimens are arranged in a rough form of symmetry appears in Legati Lorenzo , Museo Cospiano annesso a quello del famoso Vlisse Aldrouandi e donata alla sua patria dell'illustrissimo signor Ferdinando Cospi (Bologna, 1677), although symmetry is not there applied to the shells. See, e.g., Dance S. Peter , The art of natural history (London, 1989), chaps. 2 and 3, and see also Kenseth Joy , ‘“A world of wonders in one closet shut’”, in idem (ed.), The age of the marvelous (Hannover, 1991), 80–101.

The academician Claude Perrault translated the work of Vitruvius as Abrégé des dix livres d'architecture de Vitruve (Paris, 1674), an elementary architectural treatise. A second edition appeared in Amsterdam in 1681. On symmetry, see Summers David , “Symmetry”, in Turner Jane (ed.), The dictionary of art (London, 1996), xxx, 171, and Szambien Werner , Symétrie, goût, caractère (Paris, 1986), chap. 3. Summers argues that prior to the late seventeenth century, ‘symmetry’ referred to similarity of proportion rather than arrangement; thus, the human body might be classed as symmetrical, but not patterns of isolated objects.

On the museum or cabinet as a domestic space, see Findlen Paula , Possessing nature (Berkeley, 1994). Smith Pamela H. , “Science and taste: Painting, passions, and the new philosophy in seventeenth-century Leiden”, Isis, xc (1999), 421–61, discusses the role of collected objects within domestic space for the seventeenth-century Dutch physician Sylvius. On the importance of the distribution of objects in modifying the value and meaning of display, cf. Marcia Pointon, Hanging the head (New Haven and London, 1993), 4–13. Perhaps because of its association with architecture rather than painting, symmetry has attracted little attention from historians of art, in contrast to perspective. See Kemp Martin , The science of art (New Haven and London, 1990), 99–131. Bauer Hermann , Rocaille (Berlin, 1962), shows that shells were increasingly important features of architectural ornament from the Renaissance onwards, becoming pictorial subjects in their own right during the eighteenth century.

Seba Albertus , Locupletissimi rerum naturalium Thesauri accurata descriptio, et iconibus artificiosissimis expressio, per universam physices historiam (4 vols, Amsterdam, 1734–65; hereafter Thesaurus); Valentijn François , Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën, vervattende een naukeurige en uitvoerige Verhandelinge van Nederlands Mogentheyd in de Gewesten, benevens eene wydluftige Beschryvinge der Moluccos, Amboina, Banda, Timor, en Solor, Java, en alle de Eylanden onder dezelven Landbestieringe behoorende (Dordrecht and Amsterdam, 1724–26), p. iii; and Rumphius Georgius Everhardius , The Ambonese curiosity cabinet (New Haven and London, 1999). On Schijnvoet's role, see especially van de Roemer Bert , “De geschikte natuur: De verhouding tussen kunst en natuur in het rariteitenkabinet van Simon Schijnvoet (1652–1757)”, Bulletin: Geschiedenis, kunst, cultuur, v (1996), 45–75. The original was published in 1705 by Vincent's publisher, François Halma. The close personal connections between the individual collectors and their dependency on Dutch colonial supremacy are revealed in these works; see also Engel Hendrik , “De liefhebbers van Neptunus-Cabinet: De eerste malacologische Vereenigung?”, Basteria, ii (1937), 64. Symmetry is not present in, for example, Swammerdam Jan , Bybel der Natuure … of Historie der Insecten, tot zeekere Zoorten gebracht (2 vols, Leiden, 1737); or Merian Maria Sybilla , Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium (Amsterdam, 1705), although Merian participated in this collecting network, as her introduction shows. Earlier uses of symmetry in natural history plates are often associated with Dutch art: Matthaeus Merian the younger, Maria Sybilla's father, who trained under Van Dyck, produced a symmetrical frontispiece of insects for Jonston John , Historiae naturalis de insectis (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1653), Book III; the Dutch engraver Jacob Hoefnagel produced symmetrical plates of naturalia for the Emperor Rudolf II and for his father Georg's Archetypa (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1592).

Symmetrical arrangements for smaller naturalia, such as shells, minerals, insects and even eggshells or calculi, resembled modes of ordering other categories of collectables, notably medals, coins and seals.

Findlen Paula , “Jokes of nature and jokes of knowledge: The playfulness of scientific discourse in early modern Europe”, Renaissance quarterly, xliii (1990), 292–331, p. 326.

On Vincent, see Engel Hendrik , “Vincent (Levinus)”, in Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek , x, cols 1104–6; idem, Hendrik Engel's alphabetical list of Dutch zoological cabinets and menageries (Amsterdam, 1986), 288–9.

Bergvelt Ellinoor Kistemaker Renee (eds), De wereld binnen handbereik (Zwolle, 1992); Bergvelt Ellinoor (eds), Verzamelen (Heerlen, 1993); van Benthem Jutting W. S. S. , “A brief history of the conchological collections at the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam”, Bijdragen tot de dierkunde, xxvii (1939), 167–246, pp. 171–3; Valentijn , Oud en nieuw Oost-Indiën (ref. 14), iii, 560–86. For Dutch eighteenth-century collecting in general, see Scheurleer Th. H. Lunsingh , “Twee achttiende-eeuwse naturaliënkabinetten”, Nederlands kunsthistorisch jaarboek, xxi (1970), 225–40; Engel , List of Dutch zoological cabinets (ref. 17); and Van Seters W. H. , Pierre Lyonet (1706–1789) ('s-Gravenhage, 1962).

Vincent Levinus , Wondertooneel der Nature, geopent in eene korte beschryvinge der hoofddeelen van de byzondere zeldsaamheden daar in begrepen (2 parts, Amsterdam, 1706–15).

Vincent Levinus , Elenchus tabularum, pinacothecarum, atque nonnullorum cimeliorum, in gazophylacio Levini Vincent (Harlem, 1719); Korte Beschryving van den inhout der Cabinetten begreepen in de Rariteit-Kamer, of Wondertoonel der natuur van Levinus Vincent (['s-Gravesande], 1727).

Vincent , Wondertooneel der Nature (ref. 19), poem by Johannes Brandt, Part I, 20; poem by “J. V.”, Part 2, unpaginated. On theology and order in Dutch cabinets, see van de Roemer Bert , “God en het rariteitenkabinet: Het religieuze motief van Noord-Nederlandse rariteitenverzamelaars einde zeventiende en begin achttiende eeuw”, Theoretische geschiedenis: Beelden, begrippen, ideeën, xxv (1998), 242–55, and idem, “Neat nature”, History of science, xlii (2004), 47–84.

Merian , Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium (ref. 14). Interest in butterflies as metaphors of the Christian resurrection seems to have originated with Jan Swammerdam; see Wilson Catherine , The invisible world (Princeton, 1995), 185–93.

Vincent , Wondertooneel der Nature (ref. 19), “Voorreede aan den Leezer”, Part 2, unpaginated, and passim in poems by Sylvius, Vollenhove, Brandt, and Halma.

On the use of learning to combat pantheism in these decades, see Jacob Margaret C. , The radical Enlightenment (London, 1981); Mijnhardt Wijnand W. , “The Dutch Enlightenment: Humanism, nationalism and decline”, in Jacob Margaret C. Mijnhardt Wijnand W. (eds), The Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century (Ithaca and London, 1992), 197–223.

Vincent , Wondertooneel der Nature (ref. 19), “Aan den Leezer”, Part 1, 28.

Hooper-Greenhill Eilean , “The museum in the disciplinary society”, in Pearce Susan M. (ed.), Museum studies in material culture (Leicester, 1989), 61–72; Olmi Giuseppe , “Science–honour–metaphor: Italian cabinets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries”, in Impey Oliver MacGregor Arthur (eds), The origin of museums (Oxford, 1985), 5–16, esp. p. 15; Boesky Amy , ‘“Outlandish-fruits’: Commissioning nature for the museum of man”, English literary history, lviii (1991), 305–30.

Van de Roemer , “De geschikte natuur” (ref. 14). These criteria have usually been treated by historians as problems of the theory of beauty; where serious attention has been paid to their practical implementation, it has focused on the fine arts, never on the sciences. A typical recent formulation is in George Dickie, The century of taste (New York and Oxford, 1996).

Vincent , Wondertooneel der Nature (ref. 19), Part 1, 13, 28. For the problematization of the admiration of Nature as artist during the late seventeenth century, see Daston Lorraine , “Nature by design”, in Jones Caroline Galison Peter (eds), Picturing science producing art (New York, 1998), 232–53; Wheelock Arthur K. Jr , “Trompe-l'oeil painting: Visual deceptions or natural truths?”, in Kenseth (ed.), The age of the marvelous (ref. 11), 179–91. For the later eighteenth century, see Spary , “Forging nature at the Republican Muséum” (ref. 7).

E.g. Seba , Thesaurus (ref. 14). On Seba and other shell collectors mentioned, see Dance S. Peter , A history of shell collecting (Leiden, 1986). Contemporaries claimed that the Phrygians had excelled in embroidery; see de Saint-Aubin Charles Germain , Art of the embroiderer (Los Angeles, 1983), 15.

On the Dutch cloth trade in this period, see Rothstein Natalie , “Dutch silks — An important but forgotten industry of the 18th century or a hypothesis?”, Oud Holland, lxxix (1964), 152–71; Noordegraaf Leo , “The new draperies in the Northern Netherlands, 1500–1800”, in Harte N. B. (ed.), The new draperies in the Low Countries and England, 1300–1800 (Oxford, 1997), 173–95; and Stone-Ferrier Linda A. , Images of textiles (Ann Arbor, 1985). On the artistic training of silk designers, see Poni Carlo , “Mode et innovation: Les stratégies des marchands en soie de Lyon au XVIIIe siècle”, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, xlv (1998), 589–625.

Vincent , Wondertooneel der Nature (ref. 19), 15–18. See Scheurleer Th. H. Lunsingh , “Early Dutch cabinets of curiosities”, in Impey MacGregor (eds), Origin of museums (ref. 26), 115–20, p. 117.

On early modern museums and the princely model, see, in particular, Impey MacGregor (eds), Origin of museums (ref. 26), “Introduction”. A detailed and comparative study of merchant collectors in the period is to be desired.

Vincent , Wondertooneel der Nature (ref. 19), 7. On industriousness and needlework as signifiers for virtue in wealthy Dutch women, see Stone-Ferrier , Images of textiles (ref. 30), chap. 3. Romein de Hooghe, who prepared Vincent's first frontispiece, died in 1708. The identity of the artist who contributed to Vincent's later publications is unknown to me.

Stone-Ferrier , Images of textiles (ref. 30), chap. 5.

Engel , “Vincent” (ref. 17).

Vincent , Wondertooneel der Nature (ref. 19), 20; da Costa Emanuel Mendes , Elements of conchology (London, 1776), 37.

Crow Thomas E. , Painters and public life in eighteenth-century Paris (New Haven and London, 1985), chaps. 1 and 2, and Scott Katie , The rococo interior (New Haven and London, 1995), chap. 9. See also Schama Simon , The embarrassment of riches (London, 1987), chap. 5, on the relations between morality and commerce in the Netherlands prior to the Mississippi company swindle in the 1720s.

Pomian Krzysztof , Collectors and curiosities (Cambridge, 1990), chap. 4. As Stephen Copley argues for the case of England, “The vocabulary of taste must therefore serve to moralize pleasure and legitimize leisure and luxury expenditure. This it does in part by avoiding and in part by appearing to transcend those categories, so that the status of the polite as leisured consumers is habitually mystified, as their consumption is translated into aesthetic terms”. Copley Stephen , “The fine arts in eighteenth-century polite culture”, in Barrell John (ed.), Painting and the politics of culture (Oxford and New York, 1992), 13–37, p. 16.

Dance , A history of shell collecting (ref. 29), chaps. 3 and 4, discusses the sales prices of various specimens and collections over the course of the century, and finds evidence of a dramatic fall in prices by the end of the 1750s.

Pomian , Collectors and curiosities (ref. 38), chap. 5. On Gersaint's increasing commercial success from the 1720s to the 1740s, see Plax Julie , “Gersaint's biography of Antoine Watteau”, Eighteenth-century studies, xxv (1991–92), 545–60.

The signboard has generated a large literature, among which see Alfassa Paul , L'enseigne de Gersaint (Paris, 1910); Aragon Louis , L'enseigne de Gersaint (Neuchâtel and Paris, 1946); Banks Oliver T. , Watteau and the North (New York and London, 1977), chap. 6; Vidal Mary , Watteau's painted conversations (New Haven and London, 1992), chap. 5; and Plax , “Gersaint's biography of Watteau” (ref. 40). On art markets, politeness and enlightened consumption, see especially Ann Bermingham, “The consumption of culture: Image, object, text”, in Bermingham Ann Brewer John (eds), The consumption of culture 1600–1800 (London and New York, 1995), 1–20, and Scott , The rococo interior (ref. 37), chap. 10. On Watteau's high visibility within the circle of Parisian collectors, see Bryson Norman , Word and image (Cambridge, 1981), 63–64.

Gersaint Edmé-François , Catalogue raisonné de Coquilles, Insectes, Plantes marines, et autres Curiosités naturelles (Paris, 1736), “Avertissement”.

Mercure de France, November 1735, 2460–1; facsimile reprint (Geneva, 1968), xxix, 265.

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42).

Dance , A history of shell collecting (ref. 29), and Coomans Henry E. , Conchology before Linnaeus (Oxford, 1985).

For more on Gersaint's involvement in structuring taste and possession in the arts and natural history, see Gersaint Edmé-François , Catalogue raisonné des diverses Curiosités du Cabinet de feu M. Quentin de Lorangere, Composé de Tableaux originaux des meilleurs Maîtres de Flandres; d'une très-nombreuse Collection de Desseins & d'Estampes de toutes les Ecoles; de plusieurs Atlas & suites de Cartes; de quantité de Morceaux de Topographie, & d'un Coquillier fait avec choix (Paris, 1744), “Avertissement”, pp. ix–x, and idem, Catalogue raisonné, des Bijoux, Porcelaines, Bronzes, Lacqs, Lustres de Cristal de Roche et de Porcelaine, Pendules de goût, & autres Meubles curieux ou composés; Tableaux, Desseins, Estampes, Coquilles, & autres Effets de Curiosité, provenans de la Succession de M. Angran, Vicomte de Fonspertuis (Paris, 1747), 290ff. Such texts adroitly combined comment on the nature of curiosity and collecting, based upon the activities of these celebrated customers, with advertisements for Gersaint's merchant enterprise. See also McClellan Andrew , “Edmé Gersaint and the marketing of art in eighteenth-century Paris”, Eighteenth-century studies, xxix (1995–96), 218–22.

Gersaint Edmé-François , Catalogue d'une Collection considérable de Curiositez de differens genres (Paris, 1737). On the Watteau prints, see Crow , Painters and public life (ref. 37), 72–73, and Scott , The rococo interior (ref. 37), 242.

Similarly, a work published by the Florentine protégé of the Duke of Lorraine and Bar, Niccolò Gualtieri, boasted a frontispiece in which themes of rational order and natural diversity were prominently united. See Gualtieri Niccolò , Index testarum conchyliorum quae adservantur in museo Niccolai Gvaltieri … methodice distribvtae exhibentvr (Florence, 1742). Here too there were Dutch links: Gualtieri's description was based on a collection presented to the Grand Duke of Tuscany by Georg Everhard Rumpf in 1682. All the plates displayed symmetry and the specimens were arranged in a manner characteristic of French conchologies; see Dance Heppell , Classic natural history prints (ref. 8), 8–9.

Gersaint Edmé-François , Catalogue raisonné des differens effets curieux & rares contenus dans le cabinet de feu M. le Chevalier de La Roque (Paris, 1745), 148.

Stewart , Engraven desire (ref. 4), and Holloway Owen E. , French rococo book illustration (London, 1969), reveal that authors and libraires sometimes rejected engravings prepared for their works on these grounds. Goldgar Anne , “The absolutism of taste: Journalists as censors in eighteenth-century Paris”, in Myers Robin Harris Michael (eds), Censorship and the control of print in England and France, 1600–1910 (Winchester, 1992), 87–110, argues that the importance of conformity to tasteful literary standards has been considerably underplayed in the secondary literature, a view borne out by Robert Darnton's studies of the responsibilities of the book police in the Old Regime for supervising the moral as well as political standards of authors and texts; see Darnton , The literary underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), chap. 1.

Faré Michel , La nature morte en France (2 vols, Geneva, 1962), i, Book 2, chaps. 1 and 2; Pinault Madeleine , The painter as naturalist from Dürer to Redouté (Paris, 1991); McKendrick Neil Brewer John Plumb J. H. , The birth of a consumer society (Bloomington, 1982); Kimball Fiske , The creation of the rococo decorative style (New York, 1980), 162; and Bourdier Franck , “L'extravagant cabinet de Bonnier”, Connaissance des arts, 1959, 52–61. On the common ground of natural history illustration and interior or silk design, see Jackson Christine E. , Great bird paintings of the world (Woodbridge, 1993), i; Thornton Peter , Baroque and rococo silks (London, 1965); and de Saint-Aubin , The art of the embroiderer (ref. 29).

On interior decoration, see Scott , The rococo interior (ref. 37); Bailey Colin B. , “Conventions of the eighteenth-century cabinet”, The art bulletin, lxix (1987), 431–47. On the circulatory exchange between print culture and paintings, see especially Laign A. , “French ornament engravings and the diffusion of the rococo”, in Zerner H. (ed.), Le stampe e la diffusione delle imagini e degli stili, special issue of Atti de XXIV congresso internazionale de storia dell'arte, 1979 (Bologna, 1983), viii, 109–27, and Haskell Francis , The painful birth of the art book (London, 1987).

Remy Pierre , Catalogue raisonné des Tableaux, Desseins, Estampes, Bronzes, Terres cuites, Laques, Porcelaines de différentes sortes, montées & non montées; Meubles curieux, Bijoux, Minéraux, Cristallisations, Madrepores, Coquilles & autres Curiosités, qui composent le Cabinet de feu M. Boucher, Premier Peintre du Roi (Paris, 1771), “Avant-propos”. The prevalence of criteria of beauty and taste in evaluating cabinets, and their relation to characteristics such as variety, order, and symmetry, is evident from conchologies and catalogues of this sort.

Scott , The rococo interior (ref. 37), 248–50.

Journal des sçavans, December 1711, 625–31, p. 628. And see the thought-provoking comments (here concerning objects of art) about the effects of such virtual possession upon the meaning of the collected object and the status of the consuming public in Haskell , The painful birth of the art book (ref. 52), esp. p. 57.

Crow , Painters and public life (ref. 37), chap. 1, and Richard Wrigley, The origins of French art criticism (Oxford, 1993), chap. 3.

Laissus Yves , “Les cabinets d'histoire naturelle”, in Taton René (ed.), Enseignement et diffusion des sciences en France au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1986), 342–84, and Pomian , Collectors and curiosities (ref. 38), 131.

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, “Goût”, in Diderot Denis Le Rond d'Alembert Jean (eds), Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des arts et des métiers (Paris, 1751–76), vii, 762–7, p. 764; for similar comments, see also André Yves L'Isle , Essai sur le Beau, ou l'on examine en quoi consiste précisément le Beau dans le Physique, dans le Moral, dans les Ouvrages d'Esprit, & dans la Musique (Paris, 1741), 14, 22–23; de La Tour Abbé Seran , L'Art de sentir et de juger en matiere de Goût (2 vols, Paris, 1762), i, 18–19. In his preface to the Abregé des dix livres d'architecture de Vitruve (ref. 9), 6, 9, Claude Perrault described Vitruvius himself as a sort of collector and architecture as “an Art which, in everything that constitutes the beauty of which its works are capable, has practically no other rule than that which is known as good taste”.

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 6–9. The term ‘enamelled’, or émaillé, here refers not to a practice of decorating shells (see below), but rather to a juxtaposition of glossy colours giving an effect similar to enamelled paintings; it was also commonly used of flower borders in writings about gardening.

Favart d'Herbigny's uncle had also been one of Gersaint's clientele. See d'Herbigny Christ-Elisée Favart , Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle, qui concerne les Testacées ou les Coquillages de Mer, de Terre & d'Eau-douce (2 vols, Paris, 1775), i, pp. xlvij, xxiij. For other comments on tasteful conchology dating from this period, see “Avertissement” in Catalogue systematique et raisonné des curiosités de la nature et de l'art, qui composent le cabinet de M. Davila, avec figures en taille-douce, de plusieurs morceaux qui n'avoient point encore été gravés (3 vols, Paris, 1767), i, esp. p. xxiij.

Olmi Giuseppe , “From the marvellous to the commonplace: Notes on natural history museums (16th-18th centuries)”, in Mazzolini Renato G. (ed.), Non-verbal communication in science prior to 1900 (Florence, 1993), 235–78, esp. pp. 272–3.

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), Part 2, 195. See, similarly, Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 21–23. On enamel, see ref. 59.

Geoffroy Etienne-Louis , Traité sommaire des coquilles, tant fluviatiles que terrestres, qui se trouvent aux environs de Paris (Paris, 1767), p. vj. As Impey and MacGregor point out in the case of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cabinets, “those very traits of miscellany and diversity which serve in our eyes to impair the serious intent of these collections were essential elements in such programmes”, “Introduction”, in idem (eds), Origin of museums (ref. 26).

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), Part 2, 109; Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), “Observations sur les Coquillages”, 7. This contrasting of the attention bestowed upon humble objects by the philosophe with the indifference of the vulgar had a long history as a natural historical style, but had become particularly significant in French natural history thanks to the writings of Antoine-René Ferchault de Réaumur and his followers. See Kenseth Joy , “The age of the marvelous: An introduction”, in idem (ed.), Age of the marvelous (ref. 11), 25–59; Dennis , “Graphic understanding” (ref. 7); Daston Lorraine Park Katherine , Wonders and the Order of Nature 1150–1750 (New York, 1998), 313–26; Torlais Jean , Un esprit encyclopédique en dehors de ‘L'Encyclopèdie’, 2nd edn (Paris, 1961), 109–25; and Spary , “Codes of passion” (ref. 4).

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 196.

Journal de Trévoux, ou mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des sciences et des arts, 1743; facsimile reprint (Geneva, 1968), xliii, 86–95, 111–21, p. 117; earlier (p. 87) the same author had characterized the mere possession of a cabinet as frivolous, compared with the reasoned understanding of the savant.

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 22.

Diderot Denis , “Cabinet d'histoire naturelle”, in Diderot d'Alembert (eds), Encyclopédie (ref. 58), iii, 490.

d'Argenville Dezallier , La Théorie et la pratique du jardinage (Paris, 1709); idem, Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres, avec leurs portraits gravés en taille-douce (2 vols, Paris, 1745). On Picart, see Jacob Margaret , The radical Enlightenment (ref. 24), 164–9. On d'Argenville's artistic training, see de Ratte , “Eloge de M. Desallier d'Argenville”, in the 1780 edition of Dezallier d'Argenville, La Conchyliologie (ref. 1), i, pp. ix–xxiv. Pinault-Sørensen Madeleine , “Dezallier d'Argenville, l'Encyclopédie et la Conchyliologie”, Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, xxiv (1998), 101–48.

d'Argenville Dezallier , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), Part 2, 109. Faré , La nature morte (ref. 51), i, 16, portrays d'Argenville's teacher, de Piles, as part of a tradition of attention to the minuscule and to standards of the beautiful derived from nature. In his Cours de peinture par principes (Paris, 1708), de Piles stressed that the artist's action in arranging subjects for a painting “frees the shapes from confusion, and ensures that what one represents is clearer, more sensible and more capable of attracting and arresting its Viewer”, p. 97. Like contemporary writers on taste and beauty, de Piles outlined the different forms of Truth attainable in the imitative arts, including belle nature, a combination of the real and the ideal; see idem, “Du Vrai dans la peinture”. See also David Solkin's discussion of the Shaftesburian connoisseur in his Painting for money (New Haven and London, 1993), Introduction.

de Jaucourt Louis , “Ouvrages de l'art et de la nature, (Science micr.)”, in Diderot d'Alembert , Encyclopédie (ref. 58), xi, 722–4, p. 723. This disillusionment with human creative skill was closely tied to the microscopical investigations of Robert Hooke, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and others. Technologies like the microscope exposed the gulf between the clumsiness of the human artist and the delicacy of nature, according to philosophers such as Malebranche and Pascal. See Cobb Matthew , “Malpighi, Swammerdam and the colourful silkworm: Replication and visual representation in early modern science”, Annals of science, lix (2002), 111–47, esp. pp. 141–6; Harwood John T. , “Rhetoric and graphics in Micrographia”, in Hunter Michael Schaffer Simon (eds), Robert Hooke (Woodbridge, 1989), 119–47; Dennis , “Graphic understanding” (ref. 7); Daston , “Nature by design” (ref. 28); Wilson , The invisible world (ref. 22), 185–190; and idem, “Visual surface and visual symbol: The microscope and the occult in early modern philosophy”, Journal of the history of ideas, xlix (1988), 85–109.

Anon., “Naturel, (Métaph.)”, in Diderot d'Alembert , Encyclopédie (ref. 58), xi, 44–45, p. 45. Daston Park , Wonders and the order of nature (ref. 64), chap. 7, date the collapsing of the opposition between art and nature to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; however, such scientific styles continued well into the eighteenth century in fields such as conchology.

Guillaume de Favanne de Montcervelle was also the author of an auction catalogue; see idem, Catalogue systématique et raisonné, ou description du magnifique cabinet appartenant ci-devant à M. le C. de [la Tour d'Auvergne] (Paris, 1784). d'Herbigny Favart , Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle (ref. 60), i, p. xxviij, note, anticipated a “more perfect” work as a result of this artistic takeover.

Pomian , Collectors and curiosities (ref. 38), chap. 5; see also Crow , Painters and public life (ref. 37), especially Introduction, and Plax , “Gersaint's biography of Watteau” (ref. 40), 551–2.

Pomian , Collectors and curiosities (ref. 38), 166.

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), Part 2, 117.

Similarly, controversies about methods of representing shells were often driven by concerns arising from the world of collecting. Because shells were asymmetrical, artists had to do their work looking in a mirror if they were to produce plates in which the images mimicked the orientation of the specimens. Contemporary criticisms of conchologies in which the shells were depicted in reverse have been taken as critiques of scientific inaccuracy; but in fact, the rare mirror-image or laevorotatory shell was a coveted possession in cabinets, and being able to distinguish these in engravings from ordinary, dextrorotatory shells was one of the main motors of artistic reform. See Jackson Christine E. , Bird etchings (Ithaca and London, 1985); Dance , A history of shell collecting (ref. 29), 24; and d'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), Part 2, 233.

Adanson Michel , Histoire naturelle du Sénégal (Paris, 1757), p. v.

See d'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), Part 2, 109–10; the 1757 and 1780 editions possessed an additional treatise on the animal inhabitant of shells, entitled “Discours préliminaire sur la Zoomorphose”, with plates showing the animals. It was otherwise in exactly the same format as before, with sponsors' names at the foot of each page, but (unsurprisingly) was largely limited to shells native to France. See also d'Herbigny Favart , Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle (ref. 60), i, pp. xliv–xlvj; Cleevely R. J. , “Some ‘malacological pioneers’ and their links with the transition from shell-collecting to conchology during the first half of the 19th century”, Archives of natural history, xii (1995), 385–418. Schnapper , Le géant, la licorne et la tulipe (ref. 10), 72–74, for example, follows a standard line in claiming that d'Argenville “remains a prisoner of the [outer] appearance of shells” and that the first scientific conchology or malacology originated only with a comparative anatomy of molluscs.

Adanson , Histoire naturelle du Sénégal (ref. 78), pp. x, xij.

See Nicolas Jean-Paul , “Adanson, the man”, in Lawrence George H. M. (ed.), Adanson (2 vols, Pittsburgh, 1963), i, 1–121.

Daubenton Louis-Jean-Marie , “Botanique”, in Diderot d'Alembert , Encyclopédie (ref. 58), i, 340–4, esp. p. 342; idem, “Histoire naturelle”, ibid. , viii, 225–30, p. 230; idem, “Cabinet d'histoire naturelle”, ibid., ii, 489–92. Both types of arrangement were on display at the Jardin du Roi in Paris, the royal natural history collection where Daubenton and Bernard de Jussieu held posts. On French cabinets in general, see Lamy Edouard , Les cabinets d'histoire naturelle en France au XVIIIe siècle et le Cabinet du Roi (1635–1793) (Paris, 1930), and Laissus , “Les cabinets d'histoire naturelle” (ref. 57).

Daubenton Louis-Jean-Marie , “Coquillage”, in Diderot d'Alembert , Encyclopédie (ref. 58), iii, 183.

Dance's statement epitomizes how d'Argenville has come to be viewed by historians: According to his History of shell collecting (ref. 29), 37, the “unscientific” d'Argenville exemplified French courtly collecting “mania”, and his L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1) was “the work of a man who was more at home with art objects than natural history … the text is useless from a scientific point of view”.

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), 185. Again , d'Argenville sought to reconcile the savant and curious approaches, by recommending that shell specimens be displayed in pairs, one polished and one brute.

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 22. And see very similar comments about the impossibility of adequately performing the classificatory task without such treatments in da Costa Mendes , Elements of conchology (ref. 36), 70–78.

In his study of the style rocaille, Bauer , Rocaille (ref. 13), identifies the 1730s to 1750s as the period when shells assumed a new importance as the subject of French works of art, having previously played a secondary, ornamental role as figures in borders or cartouches.

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 168.

Ibid., 4.

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), 120.

Geoffroy , Traité sommaire des Coquilles (ref. 63), censor's report by Michel Adanson, unpaginated. The same orthography famously featured in Adanson's major botanical work, Families des plantes (Paris, 1763).

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 31.

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), 89. On figured stones, resemblance and imagination, see especially Jurgis Baltrušaitis, Aberrations (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 60–105; Daston Park , Wonders and the order of nature (ref. 64), 279–301; Daston , “Nature by design” (ref. 28); and Foucault Michel , Les mots et les choses (Paris, 1966), 81–86. By the eighteenth century, naturalists did not ascribe intentionality to sports of Nature of this type.

Daubenton Louis-Jean-Marie Diderot Denis , “Agate”, in Diderot d'Alembert , Encyclopédie (ref. 58), i, 167–9.

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), 190. Jacques Christophle Valmont de Bomare's article “Agate”, in idem, Dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle , 2nd edn (6 vols, Paris, 1767), i, 86–89, which was compiled from different sources including the eponymous article in Diderot d'Alembert , Encyclopédie (ref. 58), i, 167–169, displays the tension between the language of artistry used in some sources, and that of scepticism used in others.

Spary E. C. , Utopia's garden (Chicago, 2000), chap. 3.

Dance , A history of shell collecting (ref. 29), 37; for d'Argenville's disclaimer, see L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), 233. According to the Favanne de Montcervelles, he did produce the plates for the “Discours préliminaire sur la Zoomorphose”, showing the soft tissues of the animals; see d'Argenville , La Conchyliologie (ref. 1), i, p. xxj.

D'Argenville , L'Histoire naturelle éclaircie (ref. 1), 1757 edn, chap. 2, Plates 6 and 9, and accompanying “Remarques”. On the question of juxtaposition and contrast in early modern collections, see Whitaker Katie , “The culture of curiosity”, in Jardine N. Secord J. A. Spary E. C. (eds), Cultures of natural history (Cambridge, 1996), 74–90.

Adanson , Histoire naturelle du Sénégal (ref. 78), p. ix. Adanson also complained that the customary absence of the operculum in shells preserved in cabinets distorted classifications based on aperture shape.

A good sense of the distinctions between the two collections can be gained from Fischer-Piette E. , “Les mollusques d'Adanson”, Journal de conchyliologie, lxxxv (1942), 103–377; Gersaint Edmé-François , Catalogue raisonné d'une Collection considerable de diverses curiosités en tous Genres, contenuës dans les Cabinets de feu Monsieur Bonnier de La Mosson (Paris, 1744); and Bourdier , “L'extravagant cabinet de Bonnier” (ref. 51).

See the account of the end of classical taxonomy given in Foucault , Les mots et les choses (ref. 93), 238–45. It should be noted that malacology today remains a vastly problematic science, with disputes among taxonomists over species boundaries being exacerbated by the variety in shell form and pattern. A malacology based exclusively upon internal parts still remains an ideal goal rather than an actuality. My thanks to Jean-Marc Drouin for discussions on this subject.

On Reboul and Vien, see Lugand Jacques , “Biographie”, in Gaehtgens Thomas W. Lugand Jacques (eds), Joseph-Marie Vien (Paris, 1988), 9–50. For examples of anti-ornamental conventions in natural history works and illustrations, see Spary , “Codes of passion” (ref. 4), and Cobb , “Malpighi, Swammerdam and the colourful silkworm” (ref. 71), 143–4.

Nicolas , “Adanson, the man” (ref. 81), 55.

da Costa Mendes , Elements of conchology (ref. 36), 6, 19. See also idem, Historia Naturalis Testaceorum Britanniae, or, the British Conchology (London, 1778). On Mendes da Costa as shell collector, see Whitehead P. J. P. , “Emanuel Mendes da Costa (1717–91) and the ‘Conchology, or natural history of shells’”, Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), vi (1977), 1–24.

The title is a reference to Buonanni's Recreatio mentis et oculi (ref. 9).

See also Regenfuß Franz Michael , Auserlesne Schnecken, Muscheln und andere Schalthiere auf allerhöchsten Befehl Seiner Königlichen Majestät nach den originalien Gemalt, gestochen und mit natürlichen Farben erleuchtet (Copenhagen, 1758), whose French subtitle was Choix de coquillages et de crustacés. Regenfuß was a German artist working in Denmark.

See Dance , A history of shell collecting (ref. 29), chap. 4, and Bauer , Rocaille (ref. 13), 39ff.

An example of how culturally localized such conventions were is evident, for example, in the marked difference between Hans Sloane's collection as preserved in the British Museum, and its representation in the posthumous Museum Britannicum of 1778 by two J. Dutch artists and van Dyck A. , Sloane's own arrangement of his specimens, while geometrically ordered, displays no ornamental symmetry, with the notable exception of the shells and fossil shells. The Dutch illustrations, by contrast, depict a range of different types of specimens in symmetrical designs. See MacGregor Arthur (ed.). Sir Hans Sloane (London, 1994), Plates 6, 7 and 14; also p. 131, Fig. 32.

By the end of the century, the Marquis de Cubières's Histoire abrégée des coquillages de mer, de leurs moeurs et de leurs amours (Versailles, 1799), presented tasteful conchology as a primarily female activity. Dance , A history of shell collecting (ref. 29), 53–55, dates the beginning of the decline in value and interest of shells to around 1757.

Baudrillard Jean , Le système des objets (Paris, 1968), 120–50, “La collection”; idem, “The system of collecting”, in Eisner John Cardinal Roger (eds), The cultures of collecting (London, 1994), 7–24; Muensterberger Werner , Collecting (Princeton and Chichester, 1994); Pearce Susan M. , On collecting (London, 1995); and Allen David E. , “Tastes and crazes”, in Jardine Secord Spary (eds), Cultures of natural history (ref. 98), 394–407. See the critique in Pomian , Collectors and curiosities (ref. 38), 33. Such claims date back to the period: Bauer , Rocaille (ref. 13), 1, 63–65, cites several, plus German comments from the 1740s to the effect that French rococo art was a form of madness, a “wilful and unregulated mingling of the natural with the unnatural”.

See Hill C. R. , “The cabinet of Bonnier de la Mosson (1702–1744)”, Annals of science, xliii (1986), 147–74.

Gersaint , Catalogue [1736] (ref. 42), 33, and idem, Catalogue [1744] (ref. 100).

Scott , The rococo interior (ref. 37), chap. 7, esp. pp. 171–2. An example of how far this dichotomy leads Scott to misread Bonnier de La Mosson's collection is her interpretation of a unicorn carving ornamenting a mirror in the cabinet; Gersaint's catalogue makes it clear that this is a playful reference to unenlightened errors in natural history, and not, as Scott asserts, a claim by Bonnier de La Mosson that unicorns existed. See Gersaint , Catalogue [1744] (ref. 100), 74, entries 368–9. Bonnier's collection should be understood not only as a fanciful extravagance, but as a material play upon the relationships between the skill of the artist and of nature, between mythological and enlightened knowledge, and between the domestic and the scientific.

As Laissus , “Les Cabinets d'histoire naturelle” (ref. 57), notes, most natural history collectors were non-noble, throwing doubt upon Scott's ascription of the rococo to the noble order, The rococo interior (ref. 37), introduction and chaps. 7 and 9.

Bourdieu , Distinction (ref. 6), 11.

Scott , The rococo interior (ref. 37), chap. 6, and Kimball , Creation of the rococo decorative style (ref. 51).

Furetière Antoine , Dictionnaire universel contenant généralement tous les mots françois (1727; Hildesheim and New York, 1972), iv, s.v.v. “Rocaille”, “Rocailleur”. Furetière's definition was also used in the 1777 edition of the Dictionnaire de Trévoux, with added reference to the architectural value of rocaille.

See, e.g., Whitehead John , The French interior in the eighteenth century (Toppan, 1992); Bayley Stephen , Taste (London and Boston, 1991); and Bauer , Rocaille (ref. 13), chap. 1. Allen David Elliston , “Natural history and visual taste”, in Ellenius (ed.), The natural sciences and the arts (ref. 1), 32–45, esp. pp. 37–39, wisely advocates caution concerning the “exact nature of th[e] relationship” between rocaille and conchyliomanie.

Holloway , French rococo book illustrations (ref. 50). Similarly Bauer , Rocaille (ref. 13), 70–71, argues that the play between ornament and reality, artifice and naturalness, which characterized rocaille could only be accomplished by the reduction of representation to the two-dimensionality of the printed page.

See for example Bayley , Taste (ref. 118), 43–46, who, however, presents Mme de Pompadour's consuming habits, which united rococo works of art with books on commerce, finance and philosophy, as “on the sinister side of neurotic”, p. 43.

See, e.g., Szambien , Symétrie, goût, caractère (ref. 12), chap. 4. The end of the rococo is generally taken to coincide with attacks by artists, including Charles-Nicolas Cochin, upon asymmetry and the grotesque. Since such attacks did not signal the end of conchology, which successfully reconciled symmetry with asymmetry, nor the end of a “rococo” style in the design of material objects, it will be clear that the definition of rococo as used by art historians should be regarded as limited to debates about painting, rather than embracing design in general.

Crow , Painters and public life (ref. 37), esp. chap. 7; Scott , The rococo interior (ref. 37), esp. p. 6; and Laign , “French ornament engravings and the diffusion of the rococo” (ref. 52).

d'Herbigny Favart , Dictionnaire d'Histoire Naturelle (ref. 60), i, p. xlviii.

The Oxford English dictionary (Oxford, 1992), xiv, 27, “Rococo”.