Hans Holbein the Younger's 'The Ambassadors' (1533) is a life-size double portrait of the French ambassador to London, Jean de Dinteville, and his friend the prelate Georges de Selve. Between them, a pair of shelves supports an array of scientific and musical instruments — celestial globe, sundials, lute, arithmetic and hymn books — an encyclopaedia of Renaissance learning. Across the floor stretches one of the most famous anamorphic illusions in art: a distorted skull that resolves into plain sight only when the painting is viewed from an acute angle on the right. Beneath all the worldly knowledge, Holbein places the ultimate vanitas reminder of mortality.

Exhibition Venue

National Gallery

City of Westminster, United Kingdom