I am not at all sure what the artist was thinking when he added this little marginal painting in a manuscript, but I love it. An angry oyster protecting a pearl? unwilling to be eaten? or just ornery from a life time of an irritating parasite giving him a silvery ulcer. Maybe a painter frustrated in love since the oyster “exciteth Venus."
Jacob van Maerlant, Der Naturen Bloeme, Flanders ca. 1350 (Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, KA 16, fol. 108v) This manuscript is rather interesting and features quite a few "angry" creatures and some even stranger pairings...like this one below:
Midori Snyder is the author of nine books for children and adults, published in English, French, Dutch, and Italian. She won the Mythopoeic Award for The Innamorati, a novel inspired by early Roman myth and the Italian "Commedia dell'Arte" tradition....
