Vessel and shell

A tall, two-handled vessel stands at the center, its side fused with a large spiral shell whose tapering horns curl outward like claws. Behind the jar, four fish heads and bodies peer out in a vertical row, as if swimming up from within it. In the upper right, a nude figure curls into a fetal ball, floating weightless against a dark sky scattered with stars.

Fine, dense hatching models the vessel's ceramic sheen and the shell's ridged, almost animal texture, set against a mottled charcoal-grey ground. Small bursts of white starlight puncture the darkness, and the quiet, dreamlike stillness of the composition turns an ordinary still life into an eerie, oceanic vision.