Featured Miniature portrait

Hi all and happy hot day!
Can anyone tell me anything about this? The entire piece is 5 inches tall.
It looks to be painted on celluloid, I think it's a painting. The frame is metal.
The glass is convex. The back piece is covered with velvet.
I don't know who the gentleman is, but he looks important. Mass produced?
Should I take the back off?
Thanks for any input!

 

A little decorative miniature, I'd think. The internet thinks a portrait of the future Kaiser Ferdinand II of Austria.

Debora

 

NO...in no circumstance. Just my opinion, of course.
Those two missing tabs seem to be evidence of a previous attempt to uncover the portrait...an' they look like they failed right at the fold-edge. The material looks to be brass, which work-hardens...crystallizes...so when they were bent back they broke. You'll risk more of that failure if you try to remove the back.

I like it, a lot!
Where an' when was it acquired; what if any history do you have about it? Thanks!

 

With those lines looks more like Ivory than celluloid imho.
Mikey

 

I thought so too, Mikey...but wasn't that type celluloid (with lines) designed to appear as ivory? I have seen pieces of it stamped 'French Ivory'.

 

Looks like celluloid to me.

Debora

 

Definitely celluloid. Those lines are very, very even and straight. "Ivory" celluloid was made by slabbing together two alternating color strips and then slicing so it tends not to have the variation of nature.

I agree with Debora that it's likely an object of a famous (or decorative) person and not an individual commissioned portrait.

Framing style with the tabs and hanging loop says 19th c.

Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria? It definitely looks like the Field Marshal uniform.

 

I agree, celluloid of the 'French ivory' type. Charming portrait.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo? It isn't him. He lived too late for this collar and hairstyle, and he had an impressive moustache.

Not this one either, or the painter would have made an unusually flattering portrait. The poor man suffered from hydrocephalus, which was very visible in the official portraits.

 

Oh, no missing that unique feature for sure! Flattery in portraits was definitely a thing (as you of course know ), but I wonder if even more likely in a "mass produced" for the people sort of portrait. Some good digging would probably turn up the likely guy given the uniform and very specific period style. I only did a little looking.

 

Thank so much everyone for your comments!
Thanks, Wlwhitter, unfortunately, no history. My friend found it for a few bucks at the thrift store and gave it to me. I live in the biggest Naval town in the US so it could have come from anywhere. As for the missing tabs, they're still there. I had started to pull them up and decided I needed to see what y'all thought first. So, thank you, I will not be removing the back.
Mirana, that hairstyle and uniform does look like Ferdinand. but boy, as AJ said, that would have been unusually flattering!