The Ambassadors: Holbein's Skull and the Crucifix Almost Nobody Sees
Everyone notices the stretched skull at the feet of Holbein's two ambassadors. Fewer notice the small crucifix half hidden behind the curtain, or what the objects on the shelves are telling us.
Hans Holbein the Younger painted The Ambassadors in London in 1533. It is a double portrait, a still life of learned instruments and one of the most famous optical tricks in European art.
Two men in London, 1533
The painting shows Jean de Dinteville, a French ambassador in London, and his friend Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. Holbein painted it in 1533 in oil on oak; at 207 × 209.5 cm it is almost life-size. The National Gallery bought it in 1890.1
The objects on the shelves
Between the two men stands a two-tier shelf. The upper shelf holds instruments for studying the heavens, among them a celestial globe and a many-sided sundial.1
The lower shelf holds earthly things: a terrestrial globe on which Dinteville's estate at Polisy is marked, a lute with a broken string, a Lutheran hymnbook and a book of arithmetic.1
The skull that only appears from the side
Across the floor runs a long grey shape. Seen from the lower right of the painting, close to the picture surface, it resolves into a skull: an anamorphosis, an image deliberately distorted so that it can only be read from one angle.1
The crucifix behind the curtain
In the top left corner, partly hidden by the green curtain, hangs a small crucifix.1 It is easy to miss.
Our video, in English, follows the shelves, the skull and the crucifix.
Sources
- 1Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors (NG1314). The National Gallery, London
