Chatlaines are quite the thing

When I am in a museum I usually spend a lot of time in the decorative arts area and one of the items I always look for ( besides hand fans and Sevres porcelain) is the chatelaine. It is a decorative pin worn at the waist that the woman of the house or in a large estate the housekeeper wears . The purpose was to have all the keys watch, little tools at hand for use in running the household. Tea was expensive as were spices and keys to those containers or rooms were kept on the chatelaine. 

They come up at auction sometimes and can run fairly high if they are ornate.I guess we could say it was the 18th century and earlier version of the laptop with a password.

Have a Pink day!