Porcelain Cutlery Handles - Age, Origin?

These are two very small hand painted porcelain handles, looking to me to be in the Dresden style. I think they were made for pastry forks. They are definitely not the valuable, curved early porcelain handles, but I'd like to know if they are of any interest. I was thinking of selling them as a craft hobby item, for someone to make their own little silver forks. I think they are probably late nineteenth/early 20th century, Dresden, and I'm not sure why they look like they have never been installed on forks! They came with an antique job lot of porcelain. Has anyone any knowledge of these things? They are about 3 inches long.

 

I think you are right with date but feel they may be French rather than Dresden

 

Another intended purpose for them may have been dressing table accessories...manicure items.

 

Yes, that is definitely a possibility. I don't know quite why but they seem "continental"! They are a little bit crudely done, I can't decide whether the black outlines are meant to show or be covered by the gilding. Perhaps a small workshop?

 

I hadn't thought of any use apart from little forks, but the very feminine appearance makes this a good idea. I have some mother-of-pearl manicure items but they are much smaller than these handles, but I will have a think about it, and a search for "manicure + porcelain handles" and see if anything turns up! Thank you for your input.

 

I've just done a quick search for manicure items and come up with a set of three items including a letter opener, they were French, 1950's, and had resin handles but the letter opener had a handle which was flat-sided and about the right size. So I will keep an open mind as to the purpose of these, maybe a porcelain workshop was producing dressing-table letter openers, and had these handles left over!