hello..
i created a simple page with no other items just basic tags and no seperate css file and got an image
<div id="placeholder"
style="width: 60px; height: 60px; border: 1px solid black; background-image:url('http://www.mypicx.com/uploadimg/1312875436_05012011_2.png')">
</div>
i put an id just incase there was a hiddne id tag and it works