burled walnut · oil on board · second-floor hall
cut from the burl of a walnut tree felled in a winter storm in 1894. the wood is too figured to be quiet; the painting it holds is too quiet to be heard over it. the framer thought he was doing the painter a favour. the painter thought the opposite, but said nothing.
the picture is an interior — a chair, a window, a doorway through to another empty room, a pool of light on the floor. it could be any of the rooms in this house. it is probably not any of them. some visitors recognise the chair as the one from the chair painting; it is not the same chair.
the painting was given to the house in lieu of rent, by a tenant who left in a particular dusk and was not heard from again.
field-note a painting of a room hangs in a room. the painted door does not open onto this hall. it has been tested.
fr · oak fr · gilt a chair an empty room a woman at a window