Under the Sea

n some areas of the world, seashells have long been used for jewelry, decorative adornment, and even currency, but in much of Europe, they remained something of a rarity until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when European explorers and merchants began traveling the globe and later returning home bearing caches of them. Initially prized as scientific curiosities, shells eventually became commonplace enough that by the eighteenth century, they were being used as decoration, when shells and, more often, the shell motif became defining features of the playful and.