Antique Folk Art Birdhouse AAFA

Description

The terms “antique” and “primitive” and “folk art” are often applied and misapplied on eBay. This piece is, I believe genuinely all of them. There is no provenance, but I would make it around 100 years old, perhaps more. It is primitive in something like the way outsider art is primitive.  Most unusual.
As you can see, the form is that of a two-story house or meeting hall. It is wood, covered in plaster which is impressed to add detail and painted. The roof is made to be removable. You will see that the middle section of the base slides back and forth, held by each part being edge cut at an angle. Because the roof comes off, that was clearly the way to clean it out. So I believe the sliding section slides simply because it has shrunk.
It was obviously intended to be fully functional as a birdhouse, since the ability to clean out a bird house at the end of the season is important. But I honestly cannot say how it would fare if fully exposed to the weather. There is no sign that it was every mounted or occupied. But as an exercise, it is a functional birdhouse.
The base is 12-3/4” by 7-1/2”. The house is 8-3/4” by 6-1/2”. The height to the top of the smokestack is 8-1/4”.  The entrance hole diameter is 1-3/4”. All measurements are approximate.
Note the  roof in which the plaster surface has been impressed to emulate tiles. There are some dings and patches of missing paint, as you can see in the photos, but it is in very good condition for its age and type of object.
I think this is a rare surviving example of a birdhouse as a work of art and love of crafting. I fine no other example of a wood textured with plaster birdhouse or similar object, other than an interesting bird cage.