" Didn’t he start doing a portrait of you, Oriane?” inquired the Princess of Parma. “Indeed he did. He painted me as red as a beet. It’s not the sort of thing that’s going to set him down for posterity. It’s ghastly. Basin wanted to destroy it.” This last statement was one that Mme de Guermantes was always making. But at other times she chose to judge differently: “I don’t care for his work, but he did once do a good portrait of me.” The first of these judgments was usually addressed to people who asked the Duchesse about her portrait, the second to those who did not mention it and whom she was anxious to apprise of its existence. The first was inspired by concern with her appearance, the second by vanity. "

― Marcel Proust , The Guermantes Way