In the 17th and 18th century this was once considered to be a very rare shell and specimens changed hands for large sums of money. Johan de la Faille and Cosimo III de' Medici owned a wentletrap.
I was inspired by colour and texture of the fossilized shells and tried to combined a form of modern molluscs with sculpture shell and ancient look colouration.
Epitonium is a genus of small predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks. Epitonium is the type genus of the family Epitoniidae, the wentletraps. The common name 'wentletraps' is derived from the Dutch word 'wenteltrap', denoting a spiral staircase. This refers to the striking form and sculpture of the shells of the mollusks in this genus, and to a lesser extent, the whole family.
This species is distributed in the Red Sea, in the Indian Ocean along Madagascar and South Africa, in the South West Pacific Ocean and along Fiji Islands and Japan.
This artwork is unique and totally hand-drawn with archival quality watercolour paints on the 100% cotton paper by Saunders Waterford.
