gild

The markets already are calling the potential Scottish bonds “kilts,” a play on the word used for British bonds, named “gilts” after the gilded borders on old bond certificates.

The days when dictators could live in gilded exile with fortunes in secret Swiss bank accounts are mostly over, primarily because of global mechanisms for adjudicating human-rights abuses and tracking ill-gotten gains.

In fact, over the last 50-plus years, a gilded gallery of the well-to-do have tried and spectacularly failed.

Autochromes possess the light-dappled depth of Impressionist paintings, the powdery precision of pointillism, the honest blushes of butterfly cheeks, and the palpable textures of gleaming silks and gilded velvets.

Six feet tall, richly embossed, enhanced with jewels, crowned with a gilded cross and bearing a dozen gilded angels, it was commissioned by the Spanish king Philip IV, who died before delivery.