A picture of Me

Glarithia is the cradle of artists and aesthetes, the birthplace of profound beauty and inspiration.
  But in a lonely, immured studio in one the lower tiers of the city-state, there exists a disturbing work of art created by a struggling artist by the name of Larion Voskar, who presumably painted the piece right before vanishing mysteriously.
  This piece is called "A picture of Me", and it still hangs on the dilapidated wall of the studio, hidden beneath brickwork.
 

Painting

"A picture of Me" is an oil painting that depicts the silhouette of what looks like a human male standing in center view, framed by two brick walls. The color scheme of the work is muted, almost dirty in nature, making viewing the work an uncomfortable experience. Next to the framed piece, on the wall of the studio, is painted the titular text. But these are far from the worst quality of the aberrant painting.
  Some days after the discovery of the piece and its exhibition on its wall, visitors to the studio noted that the painting had changed. Specifically, that the character depicted in it was closer than during their first viewing. Upon closer inspection, artists and critics came to the same conclusion.
  Initially, this caused a boom in popularity as everyone in Glarithia wanted to see the so-called possessed painting. As time progressed, however, the painting continued to change, the character in it taking on new disturbing qualities as well as continuing to approach the viewer ever so slowly, which turned off most visitors who could not bear to look at the piece.
  Eventually, the church of Resounding Truth became aware of the anomalous artwork and issued a decree that the studio be immured and the painting be entombed within the building. Today, the building has been repurposed into an antique shop by the name of Vintage Vault.
 

Disappearance

The artist that the studio belonged to, Larion Voskar, was somewhat of a social pariah, with not even the neighbors knowing much of his life up to the point of his disappearance.
  The only lead investigators had to go on was the sobbing that was heard by neighbors during the night the work was discovered. Those who arrived first to the scene reported a nauseating smell lingering in the air and the ominous painting looming over them on the wall.
  The smell was traced to a container of paint that sat on the floor next to the painting. The black, tar-like sludge that was found in the bucket was not regular paint, being far too viscous to serve such a purpose. Investigation into the nature of the substance is ongoing.
  Mages from the Enlightened Few found no evidence of projection having taken place in the studio, and no residual magic lingered on the painting itself.
  The majority of the public believe that the painter had been cursed and that he ended up inside his own work as a culmination of said curse. But who or what would have cursed a largely unknown artist to suffer such a fate and what must he have done to have deserved it?
  The fate of the artist may never be resolved, especially now that his work has been cordoned off from the world, entombed within the walls of its birthplace that is now owned by one Elric Tallow, who has no interest in gossip about the past of his establishment.
 

Value

As ever, the more elusive and bizarre that a work of art is, the more value it accrues on the market. This is just so in the case of "A picture of Me", with collectors and organizations promising a king's ransom for the piece. Due to this, it is not unusual for thieves to attempt to break into the Vintage Vault in search of the painting.
  To date, not one of them has dared to actually enter the backroom, as they are gripped by a feeling of encroaching dread the closer they come to the wall that the work is entombed in.
  Currently, "A picture of Me" has been the most wanted piece of art during the Midnight Exchange for five years running.