“Still Life with Shells and Coral”
Author: Jacques Linard (French, 1597-1645)
In the seventeenth century, shells from faraway places were collected for their beauty and singularity, predominantly in the Northern Netherlands. They were displayed in cabinets of curiosities and frequently used as the subject of paintings. Merchant ships brought them to the Dutch Republic, but they were far rarer in France. This is one of the reasons why this elegant shell still life was previously attributed to Balthasar van der Ast. The work was credited to Linard on the basis of a small but homogenous group of surviving still lifes of shells by him. — source