Rocaille II (Detail)

H Carre Hermes > Spring-Summer 2003

The style known as "rocaille", under the Regency and also Louis XV, refers to the decorative fashion of reproducing the whorls of certain sea-shells, going so far as to plaster these same shells promiscuously over walls and ceilings. Now, does this betray signs of a stay-at-home inspiration which glorifies the stability of the mussel-shell, clinging to its rock? Or, on the contrary, does it reveal the assumptions of a verile imagination thirsty for the murmur of the oceans? To each his yearning.