Sons of Antonio Fortuny is a derelict hat shop on Ronda de San Antonio, near Plaza de Goya, whose damaged sign and burned photograph lead Daniel Sempere to identify Julián Carax and investigate the family history behind his disappearance. The shop survives in the story as both a specific Barcelona address and a material trace of the young man’s past: its window preserves the name of the business, while the photograph shows Carax before the events that would overtake him.

Setting and Appearance

The shop stands at the foot of a narrow, soot-blackened building on Ronda de San Antonio, next to Plaza de Goya. By the time Daniel visits, it is no longer an operating business. A padlock secures the entrance, and its age suggests that the premises have remained closed for at least a decade. The dirty window still bears engraved lettering, while a bowler-hat-shaped sign above the frontage advertises made-to-measure designs and the latest novelties from Paris. The contrast between this promise of fashion and the neglected, locked premises gives the address the feel of a business preserved only by its exterior traces.

The shop’s name is recorded as Sons of Antonio Fortuny, and its window also retains an establishment date of 1888. That dated inscription places the family business within a history older than the young couple Daniel later sees in the photograph. Though the shop has fallen silent, its signage still announces the work it once offered and the family name attached to it.

The Photograph and Daniel’s Discovery

Daniel’s first important connection to the shop comes through an old studio portrait left on the counter of the bookshop where he works. The photograph is printed on thick cardboard, with burned edges and a smoky image marked by what appear to be charcoal fingerprints. It shows a young couple: the man has light hair and delicate, aristocratic features, and the woman, slightly younger, has short black hair. He holds her around the waist while she leans toward him as if teasing him. Their evident happiness gives the damaged image a particular poignancy: the fire has consumed almost all of the surrounding photograph, but not the couple themselves.

Behind them, Daniel can make out an ornate shop window filled with old-fashioned hats. He also discerns the suggestion of a stern figure behind an old-style counter, partly obscured by the lettering on the glass. The surviving details turn the portrait into more than a record of two people. It preserves the shop as part of their shared world and provides a visual link between a private relationship and a family business.

Daniel recognizes the setting when he remembers what Isaac has told him: Carax used his mother’s surname rather than his father’s, whose name was Fortuny, and Carax’s father owned a hat shop in Ronda de San Antonio. Looking again at the portrait, Daniel becomes certain that the smiling young man is Julián Carax. The photograph thus transforms the shop window from background detail into evidence. It lets Daniel connect Carax’s face to his father’s business and to the family identity obscured by the name Carax.

Fortuny Family History

When Daniel reaches the shop, he finds its frontage neglected and its interior difficult to see through the murky glass. A caretaker of the building tells him she has lived there for forty-eight years. Asked about Señor Fortuny’s son, she readily identifies him as Julián, confirming that the young man in the burned photograph belongs to the history of the premises rather than merely resembling someone Daniel seeks.

The caretaker supplies a crucial account of Carax’s departure. Julián went to Paris around 1918 or 1919 because his father wanted to put him into the army; the caretaker believes Julián’s mother took him away so he could avoid that prospect. His father, Señor Fortuny, was left alone in the attic apartment. The shop is therefore tied to a family separation: the son’s departure and the father’s solitude are remembered through the address where the family business once stood.

A Place in the Novel’s Barcelona

The hat shop belongs to a Barcelona mapped through routes, thresholds, and remembered buildings. Daniel’s investigation takes him from an image discovered in the bookshop to the actual premises on Ronda de San Antonio, where a caretaker’s recollections add history to the physical evidence. The shop’s surviving name and the caretaker’s long residence make the past locally legible even as the business itself has lapsed into disuse.

Its appearance in the photograph and its later condition create a sharp temporal contrast. The portrait shows a young Carax beside a woman, with the hat-filled window behind them; Daniel’s visit finds the same address locked, dark, and soot-stained. Between those two views, the shop becomes an archive without a formal keeper: its sign, window, and witness preserve fragments that Daniel can assemble into a history. It matters not because the business resumes its former life, but because what remains of it helps him recognize Carax and trace the circumstances that carried him away from Barcelona.