Pardon my French Part Deux: The Devil is in the Details

I was on the Metro recently with my dear Madame V, making our way in silence toward our destination and engaging in the plasir of people watching, when a good looking young french guy stepped into our car. As the doors (or as I fondly call them; "The Jaws of Death") slammed shut, he leaned against them and casually scanned his Ipod, searching for that catchy tune that had been on his mind all afternoon. His bone structure caught my interest - upon occasion I see people in France who look as if they just stepped out of a 16th century painting! I saw a dude last month who was the spitting image of Napoleon, (he was even short). Often they look like a Duke of Something, with large hook noses, heavily lidded eyes, and thin lips. This boy had the look of an aristocrat painted all over him, and I leaned over to whisper in Madame V's ear. As usual, I attempted to communicate in french (for purposes of this story I will say it in english), "That guy near the door has a face like a old painting." There are two ways to say "old"; vieux, or ancien (I have no idea when it's correct to use which word). I chose the latter, partly because we have a similar word in english; "ancient" . V looked over at him, then back to me, a look of utter confusion on her face. "Quoi?" she asked, "I doesn't understand" (I didn't correct her, those little grammatical mistakes are so cute!) "Il visage est comme une peinture ancien" I repeated. She frowned and looked back at the Duke, thoughtfully considering my statement. Something wasn't adding up, but she couldn't quite figure out what it was! Plus, it's hard for her to hear with the noise of the train. Soon we arrived at our stop, and as we headed toward the sortie Madame V asked, "What deed you say about zat man?" "I said he has a face like an old painting" I replied. "Oh, ancien! (pronounced ahn-see-en) I think you say "un chien" (pronounced ahn she-en). She began to laugh so hard she stopped walking, doubling over and gasping for breath. I had pronounced "ancien" as we would in english, with a sshh sound. This very subtle difference between "sshh" and "see" changed my sentence from, "He has a face like an old painting", to "He has a face like a painting of a dog"! My bad.