The Painting

'The Painting was the most famous work of art in the Gallery of the Strange and Wonderful House, allegedly seeming realer than reality itself.

It depicted a woman dressed in blue, standing by the seashore, staring into the distance as the sun “rises, or perhaps sets”. It could not be photographed, and all who saw it gave different descriptions of the woman besides the colour of her dress, only agreeing that she was “the most beautiful woman who ever lived”. Some believed that it depicted the woman the Architect loved and that the Architect had painted it for her, only for her to spurn him; in spite he drowned himself in the Tarn and cursed it. This would presumably make the woman the Lady in Mourning who haunted the Ruined Chapel close to the Tarn. However, “those who study the House's history” held that this was a fabrication and the curse of the Tarn predated the House. In any case, seeing the Painting filled one with a “deep longing that will haunt [one] to [one's] grave”, although that was sometimes a blessing, as this more powerful but perhaps less toxic melancholy could replace a preexisting despair or grief in the hearts of some. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Painting)

It was possible to physically enter the painting. A key was hidden inside the “32nd seashell”; plucking this key out from its hiding place, and later “chucking” it into “a vase on the ceiling above the painting of infinite sparrow hawks”, was one of the steps in the complex ritual that unlocked the door of the Vault of the Strange and Wonderful House. This was carried out on at least one occasion by Frank the Janitor. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Vault)