The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 21, 2025

No. 6: Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells

c. 1736

Gabriel Huquier

(French, 1695–1772)

after François Boucher

(French, 1703–1770)
publisher

Gabriel Huquier

(French, 1695–1772)
France, 18th century
etching and engraving
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.)
Gift of Erich Lederer 1952.518
Catalogue raisonné: Fonds Français 18eme siecle XI.457.576-582
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.
  • Landau, Ellen G. “‘A Fairytale Circumstance’ the Influence of Stage Design on the Work of François Boucher.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70, no. 9 (November 1983): 360–378. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 367-368, fig. 11 www.jstor.org
  • Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).
    Elegance and Intrigue: French Society in 18th-century Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 16-November 6, 2016).
    Inventive Impressions: 18th- and 19-Century French Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001).
    French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995).
    Real Prints: Reproduction or Invention. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 7-May 17, 1987).
    French Prints and Drawings in the Age of the Bourbons, 1589-1792. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 2-May 16, 1982).
  • {{cite web|title=No. 6: Fountain with Two Tritons Blowing Conch Shells|url=false|author=Gabriel Huquier, François Boucher, Gabriel Huquier|year=c. 1736|access-date=21 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1952.518