Beautiful Shells Publisher / The Ice Plant in its wit and irony

in its wit and irony and intelligence

Kate Macfarlane

I was born to be everything I can be

in an intimacy that imbues any spot with a certain magic

With reference to Joan Mitchell

Beautiful Shells Publisher / The Ice Plant in its wit and ironyIn 1811, architect, stone mason and shell obsessive George Perry published a lavishly illustrated volume, his Conchology or the Natural History of Shells, featuring 348 beautifully illustrated mollusc shells with descriptions of species, many of which were new to science. Despite the effort that went into producing the work, at a time when conchophilia, or shell fancying, was at its height, Perrys Conchology all but disappeared without a trace in the