THE INHUMAN GALLERY

2026.05

The Painting

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PNG, 336 × 336
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the-painting.png (489 bytes)
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9304a641… (manifest)
Condition report. Oil on canvas, 336 by 336 millimetres. Subject: a small room at dusk. On the far wall, in a shallow alcove, a picture hangs at an angle that admits one viewer. A figure stands close to it, back turned to us, one hand raised as if part-way through describing it. The listener sits at the near edge of the room, in shadow, hands folded, face turned toward the speaker and not toward the alcove. Whatever the picture shows reaches the room only as light: a pale parallelogram thrown across the floorboards between the two figures, brighter than anything else the painter has allowed. Surface: close, even brushwork; smoke to slate; craquelure consistent with age. Losses: one at lower left, retouched. The listener's face has been overpainted at least once, by another hand. Frame: not original. Provenance: sold three times, each time from a description; twice catalogued under a different subject; withdrawn from a fourth sale when nobody could produce it. Examined for this report from the file. Nothing in the scene is grey in the way this reproduction is grey. No photograph of the painting exists. Present whereabouts: this file. You are reading the only reproduction.
The Painting.