Knuckle-Dusters

These little trifles are ceramic rings, souvenirs of my few days in Barcelona. I bought them from a shop called Art Montfalcon, which was truly an Aladdin’s Cave of treasures. I could easily have bought more there, but I stopped at (ahem) five pieces.

Like cartoon rings, they deliver a hefty pop of colour to my hand. They’re real knuckle-dusters too, their size belying their fragility: I knocked the red one in Lisbon, and tragically scraped off a bit of glaze. (But a little bit of paint will fix that.)

As mementoes of Barcelona they are perfect, because they remind me much more of Gaudi’s ceramics (such as the whimsical baskets of fruit atop the Sagrada Familia) than the official souvenirs.