A great pearl-lipped shell against blue and a low sun

A single large shell fills the lower two-thirds of the sheet, its spiral lip drawn in strokes of white, pearl and pale rose, the body a deep indigo and slate blue shading into green. Behind it the ground is a wash of turquoise and grey, and at the upper left a soft mass of yellow and orange rises like a low sun through haze, a thin dark stalk crossing it. Redon made La Coquille in 1912; it is a still life only in the sense that a psalm is a list. The National Gallery version is among the most admired pastels of the twentieth century.

Odilon Redon (1840–1916) spent the first half of his career working almost entirely in black — charcoal drawings and lithographs he called his noirs, full of floating eyes, smiling spiders and severed heads. In his fifties he turned to colour, and the darkness became pastel and oil of extraordinary luminosity. He is the great bridge between Romanticism and Surrealism, and the painter the Symbolists regarded as their conscience.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.