ABSTRACT
More’s argument is remarkable because of the twist, the change of direction that registers the problematic instability of discourses of gender. In the first place it seems that women are more valuable than portraits because they are more enigmatic, because they conceal hidden depths that cannot be known at a glance. The association of corrupt femininity with surface display seems to be what is established by portraiture, which can only paint the superficial appearance suitable for the exhibition room. But as More develops the image, that very addiction to surface, that sense in which femininity is fully manifested in its exhibitable and commodified form, becomes the valued and apparently uncorrupted site. Women who fail to recognize that they have become private property, which has been definitively disposed of, women who continue to desire to be seen, but unlike commodities do not apparently desire to be possessed, become identified as corrupt. They seem corrupt, shop-soiled, because of their suspect motivation and mobility-because, unlike portraits, they are not all surface. The analogy between women and their portraits, in More’s argument, makes it clear that the identification of femininity with surface and display which is central to the discourse on feminized corruption has become ambiguous. The stable but superficial image which respects its status as private property is here a marker of relative purity and value.
