In 1907, a carte postale was sent from New Caledonia to France, picturing a photograph of the growing colony with a note on the reverse side that read, ‘I shall be very thankful to you for taking back works of art crafted by convicts, a shipment that I think will be agreeable to you’ (Ahrens and Lagarde: 1246). This anonymous traveller had met with a thriving arts and crafts industry in New Caledonia, formed almost entirely by prison workshops. Along with market and roadside sales, a trading store on Sebastopol Street sold convict crafted objects to tourists seeking a unique souvenir from the South Seas. Other postcards picture convicts trading art and craft to visiting naval offers, for example, lined up with baskets of their wares in a beachside display to the Kersaint expedition. The most popular object amongst tourists was the carved nautilus shell—harvested, pickled and engraved with floral designs, landscapes and portraits—all by the convicts’ hands. But what became, by the twentieth century, a prosperous industry, had its beginning in clandestine affairs.