A Small Weight, Found by Accident

I was looking for something to replace a small clock on a shelf that had been bothering me for weeks. A shop I liked had moved, so I went to find the new location. 

A few aisles in, I saw this box. It was small, rectangular, and much heavier than I expected when I picked it up. The metal had gone brown and green around the edges and settled darker into the recessed areas. Across the lid were raised figures surrounded by Chinese characters in small circular medallions. I didn't know what any of it meant. I just liked the surface and the weight of it. 

There was another box in the same booth, similar in size and decoration, but much brighter. I preferred the darker one, it matched the brass and old wood I already had on the shelf. 

Someone had painted a figure inside the lid in black. She looks like a dancer, caught mid-movement, with the paint running slightly beneath her. That almost made me put the box back. I usually lose interest when I find out an old piece has been altered later. 

But I kept looking at her. The drawing reminded me of the elongated women you see in Art Deco illustration. I couldn't tell whether she'd been there for eighty years or twenty. I still can't. 

The shop tag dated the box to the 1930s. I haven't confirmed that yet. What I have confirmed: the underside is stamped Made in China, there's ferrous metal somewhere in its construction, copper or a copper alloy appears to be present at the surface, and somebody, at some point, painted a woman where almost no one would see her. 

It's on the shelf now, in the spot the clock never quite filled.