But first, what general connections can be charted between the honorific
and repressive poles of portrait practice? To the extent that bourgeois order de-
pends upon the systematic defense of social relations based on private property,
to the extent that the legal basis of the self lies in the model of property rights,
in what has been termed "possessive individualism," every proper portrait has
its lurking, objectifying inverse in the files of the police. In other words, a
covert Hobbesian logic links the terrain of the "National Gallery" with that of
the "Police Act."
