invertebrates

[Alexandra Vandergeer]

Dear Alan,

Not unlikely, after all, the only shell-inhabiting creatures the artist
possibly could have seen are snails. The ocean is too far away (I could't
find a sculpture of a good dolphin either), so alive conches are out. But
snails abound, and everybody has seen its antennae. The 'blob' then goes
unexplained, because landsnails don't have an operculum. Could it simply
be a mass of slime? Or a diminutive representation of the shell as you see
on the back of a walking snail?

Alexandra

> Also, could the 'horns' be meant to be
> antennae, appropriate if the painter knew that the animal that inhabited
> a Shankha was a sort of snail?