Conclusion

As shells are integral to early modern reflections on the relations between human and non-human realms, thinking with and through ocean objects, their sensual appeal as well as their intrinsic ‘otherness’, teaches us about the shaping of aesthetics and ecologies of matter in imperial centres and their peripheries. The study of shell artefacts brings to the fore patterns of transcultural objectification in the early modern desire to collect and possess foreign nature and, by extension, foreign peoples across Eurasia. Adding references to selected modern artworks, the conclusion highlights how shells offer analogies between the appropriation of objects and the conquest of foreign peoples during the early modern period, a process in which material, sexual and political aspects are closely entangled.