Marble shell, Greek, Classical Period, ca. 400 BCE. Marble, 24.1 x 15.2 cm. Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. John Moscahlaidis Gift, 1995.19. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

This work imitates a pelican's foot shell, which is common to the Mediterranean. Only a handful of marble shells are known. They must have been manufactured in the same Greek workshops that produced elegant marble vessels intended as grave offerings for the dead.