Weenix’s snail

Mounted pin-brooch, 2007 aterials: 20ct gold, cameo-carved horn, found garden snail-shell, yellow sapphire, silver, 18ct white gold pin

height (without pin): 52mm width: 20mm ount: mixed media Signed and dated artist’s no: 407.MP-B.07 hidden alche y: 207-8

The mathematical codification of the classical orders was undoubtedly a key to their success, aesthetically, practically and promotionally. And yet their origins lie not in Euclid but in nature: the capital of the grandest and most complex order – the Corinthian – took its form, according to acceptable legend, from the observation of how Acanthus leaves had grown around and ‘framed’ a stone or stele. The gentler, more feminine Ionic order also immediately betrays its nature credentials, the music of its perfect spirals being evident on almost every sea-shore and in every garden. For man the builder (or carver of violin-scrolls), however, its correct construction lies not in the simple synthesis of growth but in the analysis and careful application of geometrical rules. Having followed these methods to carve my own Ionic capital in this little jewel, I have inscribed the rule-and-compass key devised and explained by Albrecht Dürer, centred here by a tiny yellow sapphire. Gliding across the top of this, and clearly demonstrating how much better nature is at these things, is the perfect Ionic exemplar of a snail. This humble gastropod was, in fact, the true architect of this pin. He is usually to be found in Flowers on a Fountain with a Peacock [P59], the most magnificent of the thirteen canvases by Jan Weenix (1642-1719) hanging in the Wallace Collection – noticeably the only ‘lowly’ note sounded in a spectacularly exotic composition of glowing colour. He suggested the idea from his drab stone plinth, amid the overpowering cascade of flowers and rotten-ripe fruit, the manic screeches of a monkey and from within the menacing reach of the peacock towering in deadly beauty above him. The humble snail is exiting quietly, carrying his protective and inspiring geometry on his back.