This is a small mechanical brooch. The mouse goes up and down – so you can just have a straight tea pot or the mouse poking out. Mechanical jewellery is not uncommon and has been around for decades. It is closely associated with novelty brooches. You will find turning windmill sails, clowns with strings that can be pulled to make them dance, doors and compartments that swivel to reveal hidden gems, scenes or pictures and flowers with petals and leaves that open and shut. I have a fox who sticks out his tongue and a bicycle with wheels that go round; watch out for this brooch coming up on 4th August as part of the Tube-Flash series. I haven’t included ‘tremblers’ they will have to wait for another month.
I associate this mouse in the tea pot brooch with the book Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party scene, with the March Hare and Mad Hatter –
“Alice looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her; the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the dormouse into the teapot.”
Tenniel illustration of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’
