Yes, Julie, I'm sure it must be intentional. As I said in an earlier post this passage comes from a long-ish narrative poem which contains many puzzling elements. Most of the puzzles in the poem are related to the narrator himself and in particular to the tone of his narrative. He is at times almost endearingly comic and at others repellingly insensitive. This misreading of the painting is another puzzle. I'm not sure I can explain it.
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