A House Shaped Like an Hourglass

A building shaped like a wooden hourglass, set in a cave, its upper bulb in sand colours and its lower bulb in cooler ones. At top left a glass-roofed room holds a round table where people place model buildings on a map. The centre room is a cosy parlour with a curved sofa, a china cabinet and a child carrying a toy house. At top right a greenhouse has two gardeners tending a young tree and raised beds. Below on the left, traders weigh coins in a shop of shelves and flags. At the narrow waist, a blue chamber holds a glass globe and a chart of a sand pile, studied by two people. On the right, a family sits at a table of papers beneath hanging keys. Sand pours through the neck, so the colour shift marks where the halves meet.