In March 1637 Rembrandt spent a lavish sum of eleven guilders to acquire at auction a single conch for his cabinet of curiosities. Similarly, his bankruptcy inventory includes references to a large number of shells and coral branches. Visual evidence of this collection within his artistic output is limited to this depiction of a marbled cone from the Indo-Pacific region. A rarity among rarities, it is his only etched still life, and survives in relatively few impressions.