The actress, singer and theatre manager Lucia Elizabeth Vestris (1797-1865) who is depicted on the lid of this box was born in London Elizabeth Bartolozzi. Aged sixteen she married the dancer Armand Vestris, and although they separated, she kept his name professionally. She made a name for herself in Paris and London, was famous for her 'breeches' roles, playing men and revealing her shapely and much-praised legs.

Although she could have specialised in opera, Madame Vestris made her name in burlesque and comedy roles, making her earliest success at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1820 in the title role of W.T. Moncrieff's Giovanni In London, a burlesque or parody of Mozart's Don Giovanni. She made a huge hit with the song The Broom Girl! which she first sang at London's Haymarket Theatre in 1826. She took over the Olympic Theatre in 1830, and after her marriage in 1838 to the actor Charles James Mathews (1803-1878), also managed Covent Garden and the Lyceum Theatres for some time.

The creator of this box is unknown but the image was copied from the print by Isaac Robert and George Cruikshank entitled 'The Green-Room, Drury Lane Theatre. Tom & Jerry Introduced to the Characters in Don Giovanni', published on 1st June 1821. This may have been in turn a scene from Tom and Jerry, or Life in London, a stage adaptation by William Moncrieff of Pierce Egan's book Life in London, or Days and Nights of Jerry Hawthorne and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom that opened at London's Adelphi Theatre in London in 1821.

The mass market for theatrical memorabilia such as this box developed in the eighteenth century and flourished in the nineteenth century, coinciding with the commercial production of papier maché for objects such as boxes and frames. In 1772 a patent for the production of a durable papier maché was granted to Henry Clay of Birmingham who developed a process using layers of paper like blotting paper pasted onto a wood or metal core, each layer being polished smooth with pumice stone. The earliest boxes were hand-painted but after about 1815 coloured prints were pasted on and varnished. A wide variety of subjects were used, from prints of buildings such as the Crystal Palace, to images of landscapes and animals. Boxes like these have generally been described as snuff boxes, too large to be portable but intended for table-top use.