Richard Glaesser Mini Rider Nutcracker

GUYS. GUYS. I need you to understand what is happening here. This nutcracker fits in the palm of my hand. My hand is NOT a big hand. It is a ten-year-old hand. And somehow Richard Glaesser squeezed in: a hunting helmet with a brim, brown hair poking out under the brim, a mustache the size of a comma, a red hunting jacket with actual black lapels, a white cravat tied at the neck, white riding breeches, tall black boots, a gold hunting horn about the size of a grain of rice, AND a foxhound. A whole foxhound. Standing between his boots. Looking at me.

The thing about Glaesser miniatures — and I know this because Herr Stahlbaum explained it at dinner and then made me repeat it back — is that they are lathe-turned, which means the wood gets spun against a chisel until it is the exact right shape. At this size that is incredibly hard because if the chisel slips even one millimeter the whole head falls off the body. Glaesser basically never slips. The paint is flat and clean because at 3.25 inches you cannot do brushwork, you just have to get the color exactly right on the first try. Which they do. Every time.

I keep him in the Castle mews, which is the room where we put all the smallest figures because the big ones keep stepping on them. Clara says the foxhound has feelings and I should not pick the rider up by his head. Drosselmeyer says I pick everything up by the head and that this is "a Fritz problem." The foxhound is safe. I am being CAREFUL. Mostly.

— Fritz Stahlbaum