Have you ever had your portrait painted (or drawn, sculpted etc)? Where do you fall on the Cromwell-Hughes spectrum?
“Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.”
Oliver Cromwell
“When having my portrait painted I don’t want justice, I want mercy.”
Billy Hughes
Yes – I was probably about six at the time, but I still think there was a certain degree of flattery involved!
That’s a grand old tradition! It reminds me of what a friend of mine used to say: “all babies look like poached eggs. Except for your baby. Your baby is beautiful.“