No. 6: Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells

Series Title: Book of Fountains, Recueil de Fontaines

No. 6: Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells

c. 1736

Gabriel Huquier

(French, 1695–1772)

Culture

France, 18th century

Medium

etching and engraving

Measurements

Image: 25.1 x 15.1 cm (9 7/8 x 5 15/16 in.); Platemark: 27.2 x 17.3 cm (10 11/16 x 6 13/16 in.); Sheet: 36 x 26.5 cm (14 3/16 x 10 7/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Erich Lederer 1952.518

Catalogue raisonné

Fonds Français 18eme siecle XI.457.576-582

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

In addition to his fame as an artist, Boucher was known by his contemporaries for his important collection of shells.

Description

François Boucher’s design for a fountain presents an elaborate artistic fantasy with details drawn from mythology and the natural world. Two sea creatures, half-human and half-fish hybrids known as tritons, sit in a shell basin playing a pair of conchs. In the print, Gabriel Huquier transformed Boucher’s rocky grotto into a shell niche featuring the head of the sea god, also called Triton. These designs, though fanciful, reflect a wider Enlightenment interest in the collection and study of shells. In fact, French naturalist Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville even opened his scientific treatise on shells, La Conchyliologie, with a related print by Boucher.