The Ambassadors is a 1533 painting by Hans Holbein the Younger. Also known as Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, after the two people it portrays, it was created in the Tudor period, in the same year Elizabeth I was born. Franny Moyle speculates that Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, then Queen of England, might have commissioned it as a gift for Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador, portrayed on the left. De Selve was a Catholic bishop. As well as being a double portrait, the painting contains a still life of meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of much debate. An array of expensive scientific objects, related to knowing the time and the cosmos are prominently displayed. Several refer to Rome, the seat of the Pope. A second shelf of objects shows a lute with a broken string, a symbol of discord, next to a hymnal composed by Martin Luther. It incorporates one of the best-known examples of anamorphosis in painting. While most scholars have taken the view that the painting should be viewed side on to see the skull, others believe a glass tube was used to see the skull head on. Either way, death is both prominent and obscured until discovered. Less easily spotted is a carving of Jesus on a crucifix, half hidden behind a curtain at the top left. The Ambassadors has been part of London's National Gallery collection since its purchase in 1890. It was extensively restored in 1997, leading to criticism, in particular that the skull's dimensions had been changed.
Description Though he was a German-born artist who spent much of his time in England, Holbein here displays the influence of Early Netherlandish painting. He used oils which for panel paintings had been developed a century before in Early Netherlandish painting, and just as Jan van Eyck and the Master of Flémalle used extensive imagery to link their subjects to religious concepts, Holbein used symbolic objects around the figures to suggest mostly secular ideas and interests.
Among the clues to the figures' associations are a selection of scientific instruments including two globes (one terrestrial and one celestial), a shepherd's dial, a quadrant, a torquetum, and a polyhedral sundial, as well as various textiles. The floor mosaic is based on a design from Westminster Abbey—the Cosmati pavement, before the High Altar. Biographer Eric Ives suggests that Holbein included the pattern from this distinctive area of floor as a reference to the forthcoming coronation of Anne Boleyn, as it was at the location in the Abbey reserved for the ceremony. The carpet on the upper shelf is an example of a "Holbein carpet"—an Anatolian carpet often depicted in the artist's paintings. The figure on the left is in secular attire while the figure on the right is dressed in clerical clothes. They flank the table, which displays open books and symbols of religious knowledge, including a symbolic link to the Virgin. Near the top left corner, a crucifix can be seen, partially covered by the curtain.
In contrast, other scholars have suggested the painting contains overtones of religious strife. The conflicts between secular and religious authorities are here represented by Jean de Dinteville, a landowner, and Georges de Selve, the Bishop of Lavaur. The commonly accepted symbol of discord, a lute with a broken string, is included next to a hymnbook in Martin Luther's translation, suggesting strife between scholars and the clergy. For others, if the lute's broken string suggests the interruption of religious harmony, the Lutheran hymnal, open on facing pages reproducing a song on the Commandments (Law) and one on the Holy Spirit (Grace) may suggest their being in "harmony" with each other. The terrestrial globe on the lower shelf repeats a portion of a cartographically imaginative map created in possibly 1530 and of unknown origin. The map is referred to as the Ambassadors' Globe due to its popularly known appearance in the painting. The work has been described as "one of the most staggeringly impressive portraits in Renaissance art."
Anamorphic skull
The most notable and famous of Holbein's symbols in the work is the distorted skull which is placed in the bottom centre of the composition. The skull, rendered in anamorphic perspective, another invention of the Early Renaissance, is meant to be a visual puzzle as the viewer must approach the painting from high on the right side, or low on the left side, to see the form as an accurate rendering of a human skull. While the skull is evidently intended as a vanitas or memento mori, it is unclear why Holbein gave it such prominence in this painting. A simple explanation is that "memento mori" was de Dinteville's motto, while another possibility is that this painting represents three levels: the heavens as portrayed by the astrolabe and other objects on the upper shelf, the living world as evidenced by books and a musical instrument on the lower shelf, and death signified by the skull.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
