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I was prepared to lodge (and indeed drafted) a defense of the lamp, as I thought its compositional weight important. But I Photoshopped it out to "prove" my point, and when I uploaded the thumbnail, I found that I rather liked it, and that suddenly the lamp -- not the lamp so much, but the weight and edge of its shadow -- was some busyness that my eye didn't favor, as being in visual competition with the portrait subjects. Without the lamp (or even with it), I still think the value of the orchids has to be ever so slightly subdued. That the orchids and the mother's head are bowed in different directions has a cancelling effect that tends to make peace with them being in the same diagonal with the girl's head. I have to admit that, without the lamp, the table corner above the girl's head, which is to say, the fact that 2/3 of the table is empty and the flowers are pushed over to the opposite edge, bothers me a little. It's rather making the table "look" like a prop. (Daniel Greene gave me a bit of a hard critique about that on a portfolio review once, and I'm still somewhat sensitive to it. Which is not to say he wasn't right.) But that effect might still be addressed by minimizing chroma and softening lines.
The strong vertical of the mother's white blouse seems important in this composition and I think it's why I'm willing to give up the lamp, as long as the focus remains on the child.
But this is now all for the artist to decide. Once a number of possible compositional options present themselves, the artist's aesthetic prerogatives rule. I'll paste in here a side-by-side of what I was looking at, if it happens to be of any assistance.
What continues to strike me as THE focal point of this painting in the child's head and face. Keep the value of the facial tones higher than those of the mother's, and I think this will turn out well.
[Later: Every time I return to these images, I miss the lamp less. Allan made a bold call here, and it's worth serious consideration.]
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