{"id":6285,"date":"2026-07-10T12:12:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/?post_type=newsletter&p=6285"},"modified":"2026-07-10T12:12:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:12:53","slug":"tortoiseshell-translucent-brown-and-blond","status":"publish","type":"newsletter","link":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/newsletter\/tortoiseshell-translucent-brown-and-blond\/","title":{"rendered":"TORTOISESHELL, Translucent, brown, and blond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Nicola de Turris (attributed to), Piqu\u00e9 inkstand<\/em>, tray, Naples, ca. 1740, Galerie L\u00e9age<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A luxurious material prized for its translucency and warm tones, tortoiseshell was, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a material of choice for cabinetmakers and tabletiers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Govaers (goldsmith), Jean-Baptiste Mass\u00e9 (painted medallions attributed to), Jean-Baptiste Van Loo (painted medallions after), Snuffbox with portraits of Louis XV and Marie Leczinska<\/em>, 1725<\/sup>\u20441726<\/sub>, Paris, Mus\u00e9e du Louvre (inv. OA 10670)

The back of the snuffbox is decorated with a turtle in piqu\u00e9<\/em> work.

\u00a9 1979 GrandPalaisRmn (mus\u00e9e du Louvre) \/ RMN Agence photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Applied as a veneer to furniture or shaped into small objects, tortoiseshell became, under the reign of Louis XIV, one of the luxury materials par excellence. In the Antilles, sea turtles of the loggerhead, hawksbill, and green species were hunted for their meat and their shells. The latter traveled to Europe along the same trade networks as sugar and tobacco. In France, the shells arrived at the ports of Bordeaux, Nantes, and also Le Havre and Honfleur. They then made their way to the Parisian workshops of cabinetmakers and tabletiers<\/em>, where they were cut into sheets and worked. Tortoiseshell was a material particularly valued for its translucency, the softness of its blond and brown tones, and its pliability. Made malleable after being immersed in a bath of boiling water and oil, it could be molded and even fused. It thus allowed a wide variety of objects and decorative work to be produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Thomas Compign\u00e9, View of the Surroundings of Rome<\/em>, front and back, ca. 1770, Galerie L\u00e9age<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Paris, in the Halles district, the tabletiers<\/em> were among the principal craftsmen working in tortoiseshell. They produced a wide range of objects: gaming counters and boards for chess, tric-trac, or checkers, cane pommels, combs, knives, carnets de bal<\/em> (dance cards), snuffboxes, and other cases. Love tokens, gifts, or trinkets, these \u201cobjets de vertu<\/em>\u201d were a mark of refinement and reflected the taste of their owner, who used them daily. Turned, molded, tinted, tortoiseshell was worked in every form by the tabletiers<\/em> to make them. Thomas Compign\u00e9 (active from 1748 to 1778) even conceived the idea of making small pictures from it. Molded in a bronze matrix carved in intaglio on a guilloch\u00e9 lathe, they were then painted and gilded. In December 1772, the tabletier<\/em> presented to the king at Versailles two large \u201cpictures in blond tortoiseshell,\u201d depicting \u201cthe one a view of the Ch\u00e2teau de Saint-Hubert from the entrance side, and the other the same ch\u00e2teau seen from the pond side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nicola de Turris (attributed to), Piqu\u00e9 inkstand<\/em>, Naples, ca. 1740, Galerie L\u00e9age<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The tabletiers<\/em> also combined tortoiseshell with precious materials using the techniques of piqu\u00e9<\/em><\/a>. Small elements of gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl were inlaid into the tortoiseshell to form delicate ornament. Practiced throughout Europe, piqu\u00e9<\/em> was brought to its height by the Neapolitan tartarugari<\/em>. In the eighteenth century, renowned craftsmen such as Giuseppe and Gennaro Sarao, Antonio de Laurentii, and Nicola de Turris produced pieces of extreme luxury destined for the court and the highest aristocracy. European nobility stopping in Naples during the Grand Tour marveled at these objects, contributing to the renown of Neapolitan piqu\u00e9<\/em>. Toilet articles, caskets, vases, and even very rare pieces of furniture were made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andr\u00e9-Charles Boulle (attributed to), Chest<\/em>, ca. 1685\u20131700, Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (inv. 2024.49.1\u20132), formerly in the Galerie L\u00e9age collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tortoiseshell was likewise used by cabinetmakers for the decoration of furniture. From the second half of the seventeenth century, Pierre Gole (c. 1620\u20131684) used it in solid veneers on his cabinets. In the 1680s, Andr\u00e9-Charles Boulle (1642\u20131732) <\/a>chose it for his marquetry cut from superimposed sheets. Combined with pewter, brass, or ebony, it formed arabesque compositions inspired by the engravings of Jean B\u00e9rain (1640\u20131711) or Boulle\u2019s own models. To heighten the red of the tortoiseshell, the cabinetmaker sometimes laid it over a layer of vermilion. The excavations of the Cour Napol\u00e9on at the Louvre, from 1981 to 1986, brought to light\u2014in the remains of the 1720 fire that destroyed Boulle\u2019s workshop\u2014numerous fragments of tortoiseshell, worked and unworked, attesting to the cabinetmaker\u2019s working methods and to the transformation of tortoiseshell within the workshop itself. Many of Boulle\u2019s contemporaries also adopted this marquetry technique, which today bears his name. In the second half of the eighteenth century, cabinetmakers such as \u00c9tienne Levasseur (1721\u20131798) and Gaspard-Joseph Baumhauer (1747\u2013?)  took up the technique in turn and perpetuated the taste for tortoiseshell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaspard-Joseph Baumhauer, Low cabinet in Boulle marquetry and <\/em>pietra dura, part of a pair, ca. 1770, Paris, Mus\u00e9e du Louvre (inv. OA 5448)

\u00a9 2012 Mus\u00e9e du Louvre, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn \/ Martine Beck-Coppola<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An exotic and precious material with brown and blond highlights, tortoiseshell entered, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, into the composition of numerous pieces of furniture and objets d\u2019art. Celebrated through the art of piqu\u00e9<\/em> and Boulle marquetry, it was also the material of luxurious objects of everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Bibliography:<\/strong>
Jos\u00e9 de Los Llanos, Christiane Gr\u00e9goire, Bo\u00eetes en or et objets de vertu<\/em>, Paris-Mus\u00e9es, 2011
Jean Soulat, \u00ab Identification et provenance de l\u2019\u00e9caille de tortue marine en circulation au d\u00e9but du xviiie<\/sup> si\u00e8cle \u00bb, Techn\u00e8<\/em>, 49 | 2020, 56\u201359.
Jean N\u00e9r\u00e9e Ronfort (dir.), Andr\u00e9 Charles Boulle (1642\u22121732). Un nouveau style pour l\u2019Europe<\/em>, Somogy \u00c9ditions d\u2019art, 2009
Mathieu Deldicque (dir.), Andr\u00e9 Charles Boulle<\/em>, \u00c9ditions Monelle Hayot, 2024
Alexis Kugel, Compl\u00e8tement piqu\u00e9. Le fol art de l\u2019\u00e9caille \u00e0 la cour de Naples<\/em>, \u00c9ditions Monelle Hayot, 2018<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

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A luxurious material prized for its translucency and warm tones, tortoiseshell was, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a material of choice for cabinetmakers and tabletiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6310,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","inline_featured_image":false,"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6285","newsletter","type-newsletter","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"url_news1":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":438,"key":"field_64c00914a1189","label":"URL","name":"url_news1","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"url","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":437,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"only_front":0,"frontend_admin_display_mode":"edit","no_values_message":"","wp-typography":"none","default_value":"","placeholder":"","wpml_cf_preferences":1,"_name":"url_news1","_valid":1}}},"mcc_id":null,"mcc_type":null,"mcc_status":null,"mcc_create_time":null,"mcc_send_time":null,"mcc_emails_sent":null,"mcc_delivery_status":null,"mcc_content_type":null,"mcc_archive_url":null,"mcc_long_archive_url":null,"mcc_plain_text":null,"mcc_content_html":null,"mcc_recipients":null,"mcc_list_id":null,"mcc_list_name":null,"mcc_segment_text":null,"mcc_recipient_count":null,"mcc_settings":null,"mcc_tracking":null,"mcc_social_card":null,"mcc_report_summary":null,"mcc___links":null,"mcc__edit_lock":null,"mcc__edit_last":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter\/6285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newsletter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter\/6285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6314,"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter\/6285\/revisions\/6314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galerieleage.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}