Read it through once

It should be noticed, also, that the Duke values his wife’s picture wholly as a picture, not as the “counterfeit presentment” and reminder of a sweet and lovely woman, who might have blessed his life, if he had been capable of being blessed. It is to him a picture by a great artist, and he values it only as such. He says, parenthetically, “since none puts by the curtain I have drawn for you, but I.” It’s too precious a work of art to be entrusted to anybody else.