Surely its the original painting you are looking at?  How old is the
painting?  It is only so long that a painting remains in copyright before it
becomes "public domain"?

It would be an amazing court appearance to watch them trying to sue for
copyright on an painting that they do not own the copyright for.
But here is where it gets complicated.  Is it the Photograph that they have
copyrighted?

I would suggest trying to find images floating around on the net that don't
have a copyright notice atattched to it.  Especially the museum or gallery
that it is housed in.  They may have a site.  Publicity about the painting
can have a funny effect on values so they tend not to be too fussy about you
using the image.   Think of the Mona Lisa... you see that reproduced almost
everwhere!  Look at its value because of its high profile.

Or you could always seek the author/publishers approval and offer to "plug"
their book.  Hey you never know other POV artists might go out and buy it to
try and reproduce other works in the book.  ;)

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