Antique Handmade Book Box with Interior Portrait man in box feeling perhaps like workers' housing

feeling perhaps like workers' housing

The paper is a bit brittle and there are a few small tears along the edges: one very tiny torn bit toward the bottom on the left edge and two clean tears that I didn't even notice at first as they pretty disappear when flat--one along bottom edge left

It was painted in oil on cloth (not canvas)

thick cardboard with really nice black backs

which I'll try to do before shipping

Antique Handmade Book Box with Interior Portrait man in box feeling perhaps like workers' housingI rarely meet a book shaped thing I don't like, and this feels like something of an example of not judging a book by its cover! I'm thinking there may once have been a picture of some sort adhered to the outside cover, which shows a bare spot surrounded by red paint now and perhaps that picture functioned as a sort of counterpart to the portrait print of woman in large plumed hat inside; my guess is that it turned this book box into a c. 1800 French