"Obviously there is a lower percentage of people here than in Europe who have their own ancestral portraits," she said.

"It's also the silver tea set you may have inherited from your great-grandmother, the ancestral portrait that has more sentimental value than market value."

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.

The home (domus) was also the center of the family's social identity, with ancestral portraits displayed in the entrance hall (atrium).

For the clothes were indeed in fabrics like crushed velvet, which turn up in ancestral portraits.

Several rooms, upstairs and down, were hung with ancestral portraits.

He was sure he could remember an assortment of old ancestral portraits on this wall.

The lamp beside the bed was burning, illuminating an ancestral portrait that hung over it.

The deep-red walls are adorned with the house's ancestral portraits, which have hung in the room since they were painted.

He also made copies of ancestral portraits for Lord Derby.