Lobster-claw flacon, South German, ca 1720. Claw of the European Lobster; silver: repoussé, cast and engraved. Height 11 cm, width 5 cm, depth 3.5 cm. Kunstkammer Georg Laue

The hollow crusher claw of a European Lobster was used as a receptacle for a small sponge that was drenched in a fragrant substance via the upper aperture. The underside of the flacon is fitted with hinges so that it can be opened as a lid to allow the scent to waft out. The engraving that decorates the stopper at the top is a form of strapwork that was particularly popular in the German-speaking regions around 1720. Succumbing to a playful fit of pareidolia, a carver cut a face on the upper molar-like bump to imbue this unusual vial with an anthropomorphic quality.

It is true that the exotic character of this scent flacon has been emphasized, primarily through the choice of a rare natural material. This was undoubtedly supposed to reinforce the efficacy imputed to the aromatic essences contained in the flacon. Since scent flacons or pomanders made of lobstar claws are extremely rare, it is gratifying to note that a virtually identical object is in the Wunderkammer Olbricht at the Folkwang Museum in Essen.

Because of the therapeutic properties they were believed to possess and the fascination they held for Europeans as exotic objects, lobster claws were quite often incorporated in the design of Kunstkammer curiosities. The Landesmuseum Württemberg @lmwstuttgart has a lobster claw that was mounted as a powder horn in the late sixteenth century. A drawing in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena proves that lobster claws were also made into musical instruments in the seventeenth century.