This answer by Jaap :
<div class="image"></div>?
and in CSS :
div.image {
content:url(http://placehold.it/350x150);
}?
you can try it on this link : http://jsfiddle.net/XAh2d/
this is a link about css content http://css-tricks.com/css-content/
This has been tested on Chrome, firefox and Safari. (I'm on a mac, so if someone has the result on IE, tell me to add it)