What is a Portrait?

I have been running around the internet to find definitions of portraits.  I think the Scottish National Portrait Gallery has some good ideas listed below:

"A portrait is an evocation of a person. It gives the sense of that person.  It doesn't necessarily need to look like the person, but it would have to give some impression." Lesley Stevenson, Senior Paintings Conservator

"A portrait is a creative collaboration between an artist and the sitter, and it's unique in that sense as an art form and that's what makes it really different from any other art forms."  Sarah Saunders, Deputy Head of Education.  So does this mean that as the majority of my samplers of women are about dead people, what I am creating is not a portrait?  The National Portrait Gallery Collections policy states they seek work about people who are alive i.e. created from a sitter.  Maybe my work is memory work, not portrait?

"A portrait can be many, many things.  It depends on the one who takes the portrait, who makes the picture and on the sitter because the sitter chooses, most of the imps he chooses in a sitting the person who makes the portrait of him and he hopes that it represents him.  That's all"  Gerd Sander.

"I think a portrait is probably different things to different people but in general terms it's a depiction of a person which cane idealised to flatter them or it can be an impression of their personality, or it can even be an abstract depiction of some element about them". David Taylor, Senior Curator

"A portrait's a picture of an individual human being that places, what, emphasis on their uniqueness, as simple as that"  Sandy Moffat.

"I think a portrait is normally thought to be a sort of visual representation of someone.  Normally that's in oil paint or it might be a sculpture, carving but I really like the idea of a portrait being the sound of people's voices."  James Holloway.  This is interesting.  Lewis has given me notes on how to conduct oral history interviews - so could I record family members talking about my women and use these as part of the "portrait"?  Particularly if I want to play on how we experience the world through all our senses, rather than just our eyes?

"f course a portrait doesn't have to necessarily be a portrait of a person. It can also be a portrait of a thing as well.  Keith Hartley Chief Curator

"I think a portrait is a representation of an individual, usually an individual human being by another individual and it's a created object that acts as a kind of remembrance of that person"  Nicola Kalinski.  This is much more what I am looking for.  Nothing about the person being a sitter (i.e. still alive).

"It's like being in love you know, it's the same thing you know.  You never know how it happens but if it happens right a good outcome will be there you know."  Gerd Sander