French School, 19th century

This trompe l'œil painting of a grinning boy poking his head through a canvas seems to take aim at painting in favor of photography in the mid- to late 19th-century debate over which art was more true to life. The laugh—a painting of a boy coming through a painted canvas with the phrase Ressemblance Garantie, or resemblance guaranteed, written on the back— is layered and plays on the inherent trickery of mimesis in either medium. Early portrait photographers claimed guaranteed resemblance as a selling point for their services, touting the direct and ostensibly objective science of photography over the mediated and subjective art of painting. Holding what appears to be a paintbrush in his right hand, the boy smiles at the viewer as if to say "I'm a real boy."