How much would he have charged for the commission?
I can say firstly that making a reasonable copy of a face or old master painting in oil on canvas takes a _lot_ of skill. It may or may not be art, thats another matter.
I wanted to comment to mention that, for someone who paints daily, it is most likely 8 to 20+ hours work to make a reasonable quality portrait in oil.
A tube of oil paint might cost anywhere from 7 to 40 dollars, then you have mediums, brushes, possibly studio space rental. The raw materials for cheap cotton canvas + stretcher might cost 15 dollars in the US, and a high quality linen support is much more expensive, more like 60 for a small painting. Ballpark.
For a US based artist, expect to pay something above 10hrs x $20/hr + 30 materials = $230 for circa 16x20 to 18x24 size.
So perhaps a fair baseline cost to produce a small portrait would be 250 dollars. Thats not accounting for an artist putting more time into it for his or her unique style. Some styles can be done more quickly of course. Its not going to be easy to pay rent if your doing that.. in fact its worth considering moving to a country where rent is much cheaper [ and I have done this at several times in my life ]
Reflecting on all this I'm happy that artisans and artists in china can have a reasonable standard of living doing this - we can all benefit from their work if we choose.
I have myself bought affordable violins made in china for my son, and they have been made to an exceptional standard, both playable good sound and excellent finishing. Without these chinese violin artisans we could not afford to work on playing beautiful music. Does that take away from local luthiers, perhaps not because they are likely at a much higher price level we could never afford, with brand recognition that is well deserved, and likely more time on the finer details you'd expect in a high end instrument. Its wonderful to have more playable instruments for young talented musicians.
One side effect that I don't like is the undervaluing of art and artisans in general - there are artists who live in the US and are working incredibly hard in their unique style and vision.. its a lottery, they may win and get a reputation and then earn good money for the work, but most never do. And there is such a deep pyramid of knowledge in art making, and in violin making .. I really want those dedicated people to be able to make a living.
Maybe patronage of the arts, is a tax that we self-impose when we have means, in order to keep our quality of life, preserve culture. Or perhaps it really should be covered some how by taxing very wealth companies more aggressively.
I like to think of myself as a code artisan, so I can appreciate and empathize to some extent with these violin-carving and oil-painting artisans.
yet the robots are coming ... I'm sure one day well look back on the craft of programming-by-hand with a wistful melancholy. I just hope when that day comes, we are sharing wealth and resources better among all of us.