Silver keychain with articulated doll in blue dress

How the 7.5 cm articulated doll keychain is put together

Four parts follow one another from the top: a split ring, a lobster clasp, a swivel, then the doll itself. The swivel does more work than its size suggests, since it lets the figure turn instead of twisting the ring. Lower down, arms and legs move separately, the arms hinged at the shoulder, the legs at the hip. Compare it with what else is cut from the same silver-tone metal and those hinges are what set this one apart from the one-piece charms.

Stones on the front, open metal behind

Seen head-on, the skirt reads as two bands: clear stones over the top half, then two tight rows of black ones along the hem. Turn it over and the setting is on view, every stone held in its own teardrop-shaped cell, the metal left open between the cells rather than closed into a solid back. The crown keeps its carved edge from behind, and the openwork back runs all the way down to the ankles.

Five things the photographs confirm

Clipped on, handed over

Day to day it does the ordinary job: it tells one set of keys from another in a drawer, and it is small enough to sit inside a coat pocket without catching. As a present it makes no demands, since there is no size involved and the clasp is already fitted, so nothing has to be threaded or resized. If the occasion calls for something soft rather than cut metal, the rabbits stitched in cloth stand 14 to 20 cm, a different scale altogether.