Blink and You’ll Miss It (9 Photos)

October 27, 2026

By Vidar

Tiny public art you could walk right past

A boy no taller than a coffee cup. A restaurant for mice. A nose stuck to a brick wall. None of these works stands on a plinth. Most sit at ankle height or high on a wall, where few people look. Here are nine small pieces from six European cities, from a Stockholm courtyard to a Wrocław sidewalk.

🧀 “Il Topolino” — By Anonymouse in Malmö, Sweden 🇸🇪

In December 2016 the bottom of this Malmö wall had a striped awning, checked tablecloths, two wire chairs outside and a nut shop called Noix de Vie next door. Il Topolino on Bergsgatan was the first work by Anonymouse, and it was vandalized a few weeks after it appeared.

💡 Project Fact: The duo stayed anonymous for years. In February 2025 they revealed themselves as Elin Westerholm and Lupus Nensén and announced the end of the project.

🔗 Follow Anonymouse on Instagram

📷 Photo: Johan Jönsson (Julle) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

🌙 “Iron Boy” (Järnpojke) — By Liss Eriksson in Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪

The boy sits with his knees pulled up on a small iron slab, and visitors keep covering it with coins and candy. He is only 15 centimeters high, tucked away behind the Finnish Church in Gamla Stan and easy to miss even when you are looking for him.

💡 Artist Fact: Eriksson described the statue as a self-portrait of himself as a boy, sitting in the attic of his childhood home on Södermalm and looking at the moon.

📷 Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

🐭 Two Mice and a Piece of Cheese — Philpot Lane, London, UK 🇬🇧

Two mice gnaw at a lump of cheese high on a building corner. Look from the corner of Eastcheap and Philpot Lane; nobody knows when they first appeared.

💡 Legend Fact: The popular story says two builders fought over a nibbled lunch and fell to their deaths, and that mice had eaten it. Tellings disagree on whether the men were working on the Monument or on 23 Eastcheap, so treat it as a legend.

📷 Photo: Loco Steve / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

🎡 A Mouse Amusement Park — By Anonymouse in Malmö, Sweden 🇸🇪

A Ferris wheel, a teacup ride and snack stands, all fenced in around a patch of grass at the foot of a pole. Anonymouse opened the park on Södra Förstadsgatan in April 2017.

🔗 Follow Anonymouse on Instagram

📷 Photo: Johan Jönsson (Julle) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

👃 A Nose in the Wall — By Rick Buckley in London, UK 🇬🇧

A plaster nose sticks out of a brick wall on Meard Street. It is a cast of the artist’s own. Rick Buckley attached about 35 of them to London buildings in 1997, provoked by the spread of CCTV cameras. He put them right under the cameras’ noses.

💡 Mystery Fact: Buckley did not claim the noses until 2011, and most were found and removed fairly quickly. One is said to be at Admiralty Arch.

📷 Photo: Garry Knight / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

🐸 Kermit — By Mihály Kolodko in Budapest, Hungary 🇭🇺

Kermit sits like a real frog, legs out, on a low ledge by the fence in Liberty Square. You have to look carefully next to the fence to find him at all.

💡 Place Fact: The frog is a nod to the square’s past: restaurants around it once served fried frog legs. In winter, locals knit him scarves and beanies.

More: Best Street Art in Budapest

📷 Photo: Globetrotter19 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

🐐 Mekk Elek — By Mihály Kolodko in Budapest, Hungary 🇭🇺

A goat handyman stands at the foot of a stair railing on Széll Kálmán tér, tool in hand. The bronze was put up guerrilla-style in June 2018, as a nod to puppet designer Iván Koós, who created the character and lived at Moszkva tér 3, the square’s old address, for 58 years.

💡 Theft Fact: The goat was stolen about a month after it appeared and replaced with an identical one a few weeks later.

📷 Photo: Globetrotter19 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

🛁 Dwarfs Carrying a Bathtub — Wrocław, Poland 🇵🇱

Two dwarfs in pointed caps haul an upside-down bathtub along the sidewalk outside a bathroom showroom. Wrocław’s dwarfs grew out of a tribute to the Orange Alternative, an anti-communist movement. The first five small dwarfs arrived in 2005, made by local artist Tomasz Moczek on a city commission, according to Visit Wrocław.

💡 City Fact: The city had more than 800 dwarfs by 2024, and an estimated 1,040 by 2026.

📷 Photo: Danuta B. / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped)

✋ “The Breast Plate” — By an Anonymous Sculptor in Amsterdam, Netherlands 🇳🇱

A bronze hand on a breast, set flat into the cobblestones outside the Oude Kerk, in the middle of the Red Light District. It was set into the pavement in February 1993 by an anonymous artist.

💡 History Fact: The city removed it within a week, then put it back in July 1993. The same unknown sculptor is credited with other secret works around Amsterdam, including The Blue Fiddler from 1982.

📷 Photo: Guilhem Vellut / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)