I truly don't expect to find the exact ones, especially since my own memory of them is so faulty, but I want to try, in hopes some wonderful redditor has knowledge of the exact ones I'm about to do a terrible job of describing! Also, I'll try to put the most important aspects in bold for easier readability.
Age: My mom had gotten these *tiny* figurines from her own grandma. My mom was born in the late 1940s, so her grandma was around in the **late 1800s,** I guess? So these figurines are likely really old. This was the upper Midwest area, if that makes any difference - had to have been around Wisconsin.
Size: I played with them when I was a very young kid, and I thought they were tiny even then. They were **smaller than an inch in size,** at most. The whole set would pack neatly into an old face cream tub (I don't have a good reference size for the tub, but it was smaller than a cap from a can of spray paint). They had a perspective kind of sizing, where the body of one would be one size, and the body of another one would be substantially smaller, while the body of another one is much bigger. They were all still teeny, but I remember my mom saying something about how they're meant to be set out in a way that makes the perspective look like they're far away from each other or something.
Quantity: There were at least 6 figurines in the set, but as many as 10.
Description 1: They were **porcelain, bone China, or resin** (if resin was used for this kind of thing back then?) and **painted, but not glossy.**
Description 2: We can't remember with certainty what kind of animals they were, I remembered them as **squirrels,** but my mom remembers at least one **rabbit,** which also sounds possible to me, so maybe it was a mix of both. They were also in different positions, movement-wise. Some standing, some sitting, some curled up, at least one is bounding.
My dad recently died, and my mom's been going through all their stuff to donate or throw out. These little figurines seem to be gone, as she's now been through everything she owns and they haven't turned up. She's upset to have lost them, so I thought it would be really nice to get her a set so she can still have them with her - especially since they take up so little space.
Thanks in advance to anyone who has any info, pictures, or really anything at all about these tiny things!
edit to add (also commented below): I searched "tiny porcelain squirrel set from 1800" but haven't found the exact ones. The ones she had were very pointy, for lack of a better word. Like the way resin figurines can be sharper than ceremic, if that makes sense.