We are interested in the former, not the latter: what do portraits display for others to perceive, be it real or not.

The last piece of historical knowledge that informed this article is the work of economic historians. The dominant view has long been that there was no economic growth before the Industrial Revolution.

However, in the last 30 years or so, using wages, prices, economic historians have demonstrated and quantified the rise of living standard during the late medieval and early modern period, well before the Industrial Revolution.

(similar work has also been done for Late Imperial China, Mughal India, the Edo period in Japan and the Abbasid period in Iraq and Egypt).

Such an increase in living standard is also visible in urbanization, life expectancy, education.

That's all for now! I am going to be off Twitter for a while. Thanks again for your support.