Clare Gaylard Glass 

On the right he splendid and (to my eyes) pleasingly, robust crown of King Wenseslas. The acerbic Empress Maria Theresa called it a 'fool's cap'. I've been happy making some considerable handfuls of glass rings, the sort of ring a dying monarch might press into the hand of a faithfull retainer or co-conspirator. Reliquaries, heft, fading splendour, Byzantium, I was thinking. An artist friend palmed a half-dozen, rolled them around in an assessing hand and quietly murmured: 'Gaudy'.