They Only Known Erotic Signed Cornelis Bellekin Mother of Pearl Carving, Dutch 17th Century

Object Description

They Only Known Erotic Signed Cornelis Bellekin Mother of Pearl Carving, Dutch 17th Century

A very rare Dutch mother of pearl carving by: CORNELIS BELLEKIN, second half 17th.century.

This very unusual carving of Cornelis Bellekin is the front of an ostentation powder flask. (Prunk Pulver horn, pronk kruidhoorn)
The back of the powder flask is with plain mother of pearl, whole over mounted in gilded bronze.

Diam: 13 cm

This is the only known Cornelis Bellekin carving showing a completely naked female figure in the person of Venus, sitting beside a mirror and a jewellery box with a pearl necklace. Behind her two love birds, above her Mercury in the clouds and beside Venus also a cupid with a bow.
Opposite Venus four wine / grape drinking bacchants and a cherub in the air all seated
by a brook/lake within the distance a castle.

Very fine carved and engraved.
Signed: C B = Cornelis Bellekin. c. 1650 – c.1700

Very important by this work of Cornelis Bellekin is the overall excellent condition.
Most of the time, carvings of Cornelis Bellekin are over polished and all the fine details are not visible anymore, but in this case the carving and the engraving is still in magnificent condition.
This is the first erotic subject known by Cornelis Bellekin.
There are other carvings known of Bellekin with naked female figures but they all have draperies between their legs and by our carving every detail is clearly visible.

The whole shell including the profile is in original condition.
At eleven o’clock, you’ll see a small insert in the profile and this is original because on this place the used sea pearl mussel shell has a heavy thickness and goes in a half circle in wards.
To keep the shell as large as possible Cornelis Bellekin has filled this gab with a piece of mother of pearl.

Object History

To your information:
We are familiar with the work of Cornelis Bellekin since we have sold in the past the two largest known mother of pearl shells by Cornelis Bellekin with the subjects: “ De wonderbaarlijke visvangst” en “ De vlucht naar Egypte” and another small oval Cornelis Bellekin shell coming from the collection of: Albertus Seba and documented in his Thesaurus, the catalogue of the Albertus Seba collection, which we discovered, is now in the collection of the Amsterdam Historical Museum.

Object Condition

The shell has no cracks or restorations.

Object Details