Small oval dish with fish and serpent 1845 - 1855

Joseph Landais made this small oval dish with fish and serpent from earthenware, probably in France in the mid-19th century. The scene presented is full of the drama of nature, a fish swims in the water, surrounded by plants and menaced by a snake, lizard, and turtle, all competing for survival in the same small ecosystem. The piece reflects a fascination with the natural world and the growing field of natural history that was emerging in the 19th century, influencing the art of the time. The dish’s visual codes present a miniature theatre of life and death that invites reflection on the human place within a broader natural order. The growth of scientific understanding, along with the institutionalising of science in universities and museums, shaped artistic production in ways that we can uncover through careful art-historical research. This might involve, in this case, looking into the history of natural history as a field and the ways that its visual imagery was codified and circulated.