Sleepy Cat

Curled nose to tail, this is the pose every cat owner knows — the one that appears the moment a patch of sun lands on the carpet and stays put for the rest of the afternoon. The subject is handled as a compact coil rather than a detailed animal study, which is what makes it work as an ornament instead of a model. Small household pieces earn their place by being easy to put down anywhere: a windowsill, the corner of a bookshelf, a bedside table, the shelf above a radiator. This one reads as decoration rather than clutter and asks for no display case or plinth. It is also the obvious present for cat people, who tend to accumulate these things steadily and have never once been heard to complain about it.