Half the face of a man with exaggerated features guards Panses Street under a third-floor balcony. It is located on the arch that closes off the street at the top, leaving free passage below for pedestrians. Mystery surrounds this half face, only visible from the nose to the chin. His eyes and forehead are cut off by the balcony itself. Literally, he has the balcony as a visor.
The origin of this small sculpture is unknown. It may simply be a stone reused as a decorative motif in some reform of the building, although the general opinion is that it is one of the carasses that formerly indicated the presence of a brothel. Joan Amades, in his work Històries i llegendes de Barcelona, however, assures that there is no news about the existence of a whorehouse in this street, but there is in the nearby Portadores, which would give veracity to the hypothesis of reuse and transfer of the figure, something on the other hand very common in Barcelona.
The puzzle lies in why the face is cut off by the balcony. Perhaps it is because the small original sculpture had a damaged upper part or it was simply a whim of the builder or owner of the building.
The custom of marking brothels with a carved face dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries. It was a kind of code recognized among soldiers and sailors, regular customers of these establishments when they arrived at port and disembarked from their ships. In fact, the face of Calle de las Panses is found in Ribera, the old seaside neighborhood of Barcelona.
Nearby are two of the best known and best preserved carasses. One is on the corner of Calle Mirallers and Vigatà. In this case, it is a woman's face. Not far away, on the corner of Calle de las Mosques —the narrowest in the city— and Flassaders, there is another male face known by the name of Papamosques. Some say that it is a replica of the Papamosques of Burgos Cathedral, a figure that is part of the temple clock and that opens and closes its mouth every time it strikes the hours. But the relation and resemblance are non-existent.
The existence of an old brothel marked with this face on Calle de las Mosques is real. Even among the people of Barcelona there was a saying in Catalan that "in Carrer de les Mosques they work in the dark".
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