Yes, I completely agree with your comments here, and this is exactly what was happening in the code. But no images were shown until I put them in a folder underneath the project folder.

I you type just the file name in the property sheet, or use the lookup button for the property, VFP adds a relative path to the file name. If that path isn’t relative to the project file, VFP can’t seem to resolve it in a compiled application. The way we get around that is to enter just the filename (no path) as an expression. You can do that by setting the property programmatically, or by entering it in the property sheet like this:
=”Image.BMP”
Note the equal (=) and the string delimiters (“). During development, the file will be found as long as it is anywhere in your VFP path. When the image is compiled into an application, the app can always find it.