Spot the Frippet: a portrait.

 What's the point of portraits?

Elizabeth I of England used them to present a vision of herself as a goddess, pretty-much.

portrait by George Gower

And sometimes they're a guarantee of eternal wealth and power:

that's Nero

Sometimes they make a comment on the person portrayed:

by George Cruikshank.

And sometimes they're designed to lure people closer:

Photo by George Hurrell of Jane Russell in The Outlaw

Most portraits, though, are of people we know, and these people are often ourselves. Self-portraits can be a means of intense self-reflection:

Rembrandt

But are usually not.

Mostly, though portraits are to keep an image of a loved one close in the mind and in the heart.

The only thing that makes this at all tolerable is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Spot the Frippet: a portrait. The Old French word portraire means to depict. The Latin word prōtrahere means to drag forth. Trahere means to drag.