Ceramic Espresso Cup with Green Butterfly Handle

"Big-room envy" — that was Patricia's name for the longing she felt at Chanteduc, her beloved farmhouse in Vaison-la-Romaine, where a warren of cosy rooms left her dreaming of something grander. She and Walter once drew up plans for a sweeping extension overlooking Mont Ventoux, and Patricia had already settled on a theme: butterflies. The extension was never built, and this small ceramic cup — one of a handful of decorative pieces gathered for the project — is a charming record of a room that existed only in imagination.

The cup is a simple, straight-sided cylinder in cream-glazed ceramic, its interior rimmed with a fine line of soft green. What makes it singular is the handle: a sculpted butterfly, wings spread and caught mid-landing, modelled with naturalistic precision.

Small enough for a single espresso or a few stems of garden herbs, this cup works equally well as a decorative object on a windowsill or shelf. Grouped with other butterfly-themed pieces, or standing alone among garden books and pressed botanicals, it carries the spirit of Patricia's unrealised room — and is all the more appealing for it.