“The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – A Detailed Analysis
From friendship to feuds between the church and royal families, The Ambassadors (1533) by Hans Holbein is a painting steeped in the riches of history. It is a telling tale of two ambassadors, one that we uncover in the article below.
Who Was Hans Holbein the Younger?
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist who was born in Augsburg around 1497 to 1498. He was born into an artistic family; his father was Hans Holbein the Elder, who was a painter whose art has been characterized as Late Gothic. His brother, who was older by a few years, Ambrosius Holbein, was also a multi-talented artist.
Holbein moved to Basel, Switzerland, in 1515 and joined the city’s painters’ guild in 1519. He is also thought to have traveled to Italy and later worked in France before settling in England, where he lived for several years. He became a portrait painter who worked for members of the royal court and other prominent patrons.
His style influenced many artists working in England, and his paintings were often copied, including several depicting King Henry VIII. Holbein died in London in 1543, probably of plague.
The Ambassadors (1533) by Hans Holbein the Younger in Context
The Ambassadors painting by Hans Holbein the Younger also goes by the title of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, who are the sitters in the composition. This may appear as a simple portrait painting of two men, but upon closer inspection, there is a wealth of symbols in the subject matter.
We will discuss this painting in more detail providing a brief socio-historical overview, discussing who the two men are in the painting, and the political and social climate at the time it was painted. We will then give a visual description of the subject matter and discuss what art elements and principles make up the composition.
| Artist | Hans Holbein the Younger |
| Date Painted | 1533 |
| Medium | Oil on oak |
| Genre | Portrait and Still Life painting |
| Period / Movement | Northern Renaissance |
| Dimensions | 207 x 209.5 centimeters |
| Series / Versions | N/A |
| Where Is It Housed? | The National Gallery, London, England |
| What It Is Worth | N/A |
Contextual Analysis: A Brief Socio-Historical Overview
Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors was painted in 1533. This was a period in England’s history when Henry VIII was the ruling king. He took over the throne in 1509, which was when his father Henry VII died. His brother Arthur had died in 1502, and in 1509, shortly after taking the throne, Henry VIII married Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon.
King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon lost several children in infancy or to miscarriage; Mary I, born in 1516, was the only child to survive to adulthood.
King Henry VIII was known for wanting a male heir, and he reportedly wanted to remarry, with his affections turned to Anne Boleyn, who was Catherine’s lady-in-waiting, which is like an assistant to the queen.
The king sought an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, but Pope Clement VII refused, largely because Catherine’s nephew, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, opposed it.
This disagreement led King Henry VIII to break away from the Catholic Church. He married Anne Boleyn in secret in January 1533, and in May of that year, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer declared his marriage to Catherine null and void.
Who Are the Ambassadors?
The question arises, what do the ambassadors in Holbein’s painting have to do with what seems to be royal and religious feuds? We need to look to the year 1534, when King Henry VIII also became what is known as the Supreme Head of the Church of England, a title the pope had previously held.
The English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy, formally declaring Henry’s new title. However, this caused the division between the Catholic Church in Rome, Italy, and the Church of England. This is also referred to as the English Reformation.
France, then ruled by King Francis I, also kept ambassadors at Henry VIII’s court. Jean de Dinteville, shown standing on the left in Holbein’s painting, was serving his second term as French ambassador in London. The man on the right, Georges de Selve, was a fellow French diplomat and the Bishop of Lavaur, though he had not yet been consecrated when the portrait was painted, which is likely why his sober dress stops short of full episcopal vestments.
Jean de Dinteville was sent by King Francis I to monitor the religious upheaval in England and act as a go-between for the two kings. He remained in London for most of 1533, including through Anne Boleyn’s coronation in June of that year.
Georges de Selve was a close friend of Dinteville’s and came to London in the spring of 1533 on what appears to have been a secret visit whose exact purpose remains unknown. Dinteville is understood to have commissioned the double portrait himself, to commemorate the visit and to hang at his family’s château at Polisy in France.
Formal Analysis: A Brief Compositional Overview
In Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors, there is a significant amount of detail. This was a common trait of Northern Renaissance art, also described as “naturalism”. Below we will provide a visual description of the subject matter, much of which has also been read as symbolic of the Catholic Church and King Henry VIII’s break from it. This will be followed by an analysis of the artistic techniques that Holbein the Younger utilized.
Visual Description: Subject Matter
The Ambassadors painting depicts two men standing at full length and leaning with their elbows against a table between them. They are both looking straight at us, the viewers. There are various paraphernalia on the table, ranging from artistic to scientific, which we will discuss further below. Behind the men is a large green curtain filling up the background and the floor is a tiled mosaic that resembles, and may have been inspired by, the Cosmati (otherwise also referred to as the “Cosmatesque technique”) Pavement in Westminster Abbey in front of the High Altar, though Holbein simplified and varied the pattern.
The pavement was laid in 1268 under King Henry III, and Anne Boleyn’s coronation was held over this same pavement in 1533.
If we look at the figure to the left, Jean de Dinteville, his style has been described as “flamboyant”. He is wearing a long-sleeved pinkish silk/satin shirt over a white long-sleeved undershirt with what appears to be a velvety black tunic over it. Over these clothes he is wearing a large fur-lined coat, the sleeves cropped and puffed just below his shoulders.
He is wearing a black beret-like hat and black shoes with black stockings. In his right hand, he is holding a dagger in its sheath with tassels hanging from it. Around his neck is a large gold chain with a pendant depicting St. Michael. This could allude to the fact that he was part of the Order of St. Michael at the time. The upper part of his sword is visible on his left side under his coat.
On his dagger, we can also see an inscription that reads “AET SV Æ 29”, indicating that he was in his 29th year, or about 28 years old.
If we look at the figure to the right, who is Georges de Selve, we will see that he is wearing a simpler costume, more specifically a full-length robe with the tip of his shoe pointing out from underneath it. His robe appears to be a deep purple color and the inner lining appears brown.
His headdress is also black in color. His right elbow is resting on a book on the table beside him and he is holding what looks like gloves in his right hand. His left hand is loosely holding on to his robe. His outfit has been described as more “clerical” in style.
On the side pages of the above-mentioned book is another inscription that reads “AETAT IS SV Æ 25”, indicating that he was in his 25th year, or about 24 years old.
Let us look at the items on the table between the two men, which have an upper and lower shelf. On the upper shelf of the table, which has a beautiful carpet over it, to the left and closer to Jean de Dinteville, is a celestial globe.
To the right, closer to Georges de Selve, are several mathematical devices to measure the sunlight and other astronomical details of the sky.
Beginning from the left of the top shelf, these items include a Shepherd’s dial, a Quadrant, a disassembled Equinoctial dial with a small circular dial in front of it, a Polyhedral sundial, and a Torquetum, as well as a book, on which the elbow of Georges de Selve is resting.
If we look at the bottom shelf, again closest to Jean de Dinteville to the left, is another globe, but this is a terrestrial one. There are primarily musical instruments on this shelf and hymn books. The closed book to the left is reportedly an arithmetic book with what appears to be a wooden set square, which assists in drawing correct angles, bookmarked in it. This book has reportedly been identified as A New and Well-founded Instruction of All Merchant Arithmetic (1527) by the German Peter Apian, who was well-reputed in the fields of astronomy and mathematics, with various other publications.
The other book to the right, and partly resting on several flutes in a casing, is an open Lutheran hymnal: Johann Walther’s Geystliche Gesangbüchlein. We are also able to read the exact hymn on it. Reportedly, the two hymns are “Come Holy Ghost” and “The Ten Commandments”.
To the right is a large lute, and if we look at it closely one of its strings is snapped. Near the background, we see what appears to be another mathematical device, a metal compass. Underneath the table, we will notice a dark object lying face down on the floor: the lute’s case, set aside beneath the shelf that holds the instrument itself.
Below, on the tiled floor, we can see what is possibly the strangest and mostly unrecognizable object. This object is known as the “anamorphic skull”, which relates to anamorphism, being a distorted perspective of an image.
This was also a technique used elsewhere during the Renaissance period.
When viewing the image normally, from the front, we only see an elongated shape. It resolves into a recognizable skull when viewed from a steep angle to the right of the painting, close to its lower edge. In the top left corner of the composition is a crucifix depicting the figure of Jesus Christ on the Cross.
This is partially covered by the green curtain.
How to See the Hidden Skull: A Step-by-Step Viewing Method
- Stand facing the painting straight on. From here, the object on the floor in the foreground just reads as an odd, elongated smear with no clear shape.
- Move around to the right-hand side of the painting.
- Lower your eye line toward the bottom edge of the canvas, looking back across the surface at a steep, raking angle rather than head-on.
- From that angle, the smear resolves into a recognizable human skull — the anamorphic trick Holbein used to hide a memento mori in plain sight among the ambassadors’ worldly possessions.
Color and Value
If we look at The Ambassadors, the artist utilized various hues like the cooler green in the background and warmer colors like reds and pinks in the carpet and clothing. There are dark and light color values in this painting, notable by the dark or black clothing and the lighter colors in the white of the fur and the light-colored objects on the table. The lower portion of the composition, the floor, appears lighter in color compared to the upper portion where we see the curtains.
Altogether, there is a contrast of color schemes in this painting, creating a harmonious effect.
Texture
Hans Holbein the Younger renders a range of implied textures, from soft to hard surfaces. Combined with his fine handling of oil paint, this attention to texture gives The Ambassadors the naturalism typical of Northern Renaissance portraiture.
While there are numerous examples, some include delicate details of the fur on Jean de Dinteville’s coat, the silky sheen of his pink shirt, and the tassels hanging from his dagger. We also see the intricate detailing on the two globes and the harder wooden surfaces of the musical instruments.
This same precision extends to details that are easy to miss at a glance, including the lute’s snapped string, which carries specific symbolic weight, discussed further below.
Line, Form, and Shape
A vertical line is created by the two full-length figures and the folds in the curtains behind them. This is contrasted by the horizontal shape of the table between them. There are various shapes and forms in this composition, notably spherical shapes from the globes and the diagonal line from the anamorphic skull in the foreground, which has been described as almost parallel to the position of the lute on the lower shelf of the table.
Space
The spatial depth in The Ambassadors painting has been described as shallow. There is a minimal amount of space between the figures and the edge of the painting in the foreground. The curtains in the background are also placed seemingly directly behind the table and figures, bringing them more into the foreground.
We also see the lute on the lower shelf portrayed in a foreshortened perspective.
Hans Holbein: The Ambassadors Symbolism
The objects surrounding Dinteville and Selve carry specific symbolic weight, reflecting the social, political, and religious tensions of the moment in which the painting was made.
The globes, the carpet, and various devices could allude to ideas about travel and trade, as well as the European influence on other lands due to colonization.
| Object | Where It Appears | What It Represents |
| Broken lute string | Lower shelf of the table | Discord amid Europe’s wider political and religious divisions, including England’s break with Rome |
| Anamorphic skull | Foreground, distorted across the floor | Memento mori: a reminder of death and the brevity of life |
| Crucifix | Upper left corner, half-hidden by the curtain | The promise of salvation, kept in the background of the painting’s worldly concerns |
| Celestial globe and astronomical instruments | Upper shelf | Heavenly knowledge and the spiritual order |
| Terrestrial globe and musical instruments | Lower shelf | Earthly knowledge, trade, and temporal life |
| Johann Walther’s Lutheran hymnal | Lower shelf, beside the lute | The Protestant Reformation, though the chosen hymns may also express a hope for Christian unity |
Beyond these individual meanings, the anamorphic skull carries particular weight as a memento mori, a reminder of death and the passage of time. The closely related vanitas genre, built around similar reminders of mortality in still-life form, would not fully develop until Dutch painting of the following century, so the skull belongs to an older, specifically northern tradition of memento mori imagery. This split between the sacred and the everyday also organizes the composition itself: the upper shelf stands for spiritual and heavenly concerns, while the lower shelf stands for worldly life.
Similarly, the two figures are symbolic too, Jean de Dinteville to the left appears more decadent and “active” in his demeanor compared to Georges de Selve, who appears quieter and calmer; some also describe him as “contemplative”.
The Ambassadors: More Than Meets the Eye
The Ambassadors is more than a portrait of two men. It captures a precise moment in 1533, when England’s break with Rome was reshaping the country’s relationship with the rest of Europe, and it does so through the visual language of mortality and transience common to Northern Renaissance painting. It is also the record of a friendship between two men who happened to be in London at the same time, preserved here in their notable attire and possessions.
From Polisy to the National Gallery
The painting’s journey to its current home spans over three centuries:
- 1533: Painted for Jean de Dinteville, intended to hang at his family’s château at Polisy, in Champagne, France.
- 1653: Moved from Polisy to Paris.
- 1787: Sold at the Beaujon sale to the French art dealer Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun.
- By 1792: Sold in England.
- 1808–09: Bought from the dealer Buchanan by the 2nd Earl of Radnor.
- 1890: Purchased by the National Gallery in London, where it remains on permanent display today.
The painting rewards close, repeated looking: each pass across its surface turns up another layer, from the instruments on the table to the distorted skull underfoot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who Painted The Ambassadors?
Hans Holbein the Younger, who was a German artist living in England, created The Ambassadors in 1533, which is an oil painting that measures around 207 by 209.5 centimeters.
Who Are the Two Men in The Ambassadors Painting?
Hans Holbein the Younger painted two French diplomats in The Ambassadors (1533). The man on the left is Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador to Henry VIII’s court, and the man on the right is his friend Georges de Selve, the Bishop of Lavaur.
Who Commissioned The Ambassadors, and Why?
Jean de Dinteville is understood to have commissioned the double portrait himself, to commemorate Georges de Selve’s visit to London in 1533 and to hang at Dinteville’s family château at Polisy in France.
What Is the Unidentifiable Object in The Ambassadors Painting?
Hans Holbein the Younger used a technique called anamorphism to paint the elongated shape in the foreground of The Ambassadors (1533). Viewed from a steep angle to the right of the painting, close to its lower edge, the shape resolves into a human skull. This is a so-called memento mori symbol, typically seen in Northern Renaissance paintings as a reminder of death and the fleeting nature of life.
Where Can You See The Ambassadors Today?
The Ambassadors hangs in the National Gallery in London, England, which purchased the painting in 1890. Admission to the National Gallery’s permanent collection is free.
Alicia du Plessis is a multidisciplinary writer. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in Art History and Classical Civilization, as well as two Honors, namely, in Art History and Education and Development, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. For her main Honors project in Art History, she explored perceptions of the San Bushmen’s identity and the concept of the “Other”. She has also looked at the use of photography in art and how it has been used to portray people’s lives.
Alicia’s other areas of interest in Art History include the process of writing about Art History and how to analyze paintings. Some of her favorite art movements include Impressionism and German Expressionism. She is yet to complete her Masters in Art History (she would like to do this abroad in Europe) having given it some time to first develop more professional experience with the interest to one day lecture it too.
Alicia has been working for artincontext.com since 2021 as an author and art history expert. She has specialized in painting analysis and is covering most of our painting analysis.
Learn more about Alicia du Plessis and the Art in Context Team.
Cite this Article
Alicia, du Plessis, ““The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – A Detailed Analysis.” Art in Context. June 23, 2022. URL: https://artincontext.org/the-ambassadors-by-hans-holbein-the-younger/
du Plessis, A. (2022, 23 June). “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – A Detailed Analysis. Art in Context. https://artincontext.org/the-ambassadors-by-hans-holbein-the-younger/
du Plessis, Alicia. ““The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – A Detailed Analysis.” Art in Context, June 23, 2022. https://artincontext.org/the-ambassadors-by-hans-holbein-the-younger/.
”Georges de Selve, another French diplomat, was in England and apparently was Dinteville’s friend, and he commissioned the painting as a celebration of their friendship. The two were painted when they were both in England at the time when Hans Holbein the Younger was living there around 1532”
Does this mean de Selve was the one who commissioned it, or Dinteville? ‘He’ could refer to both. In the context of the sentence, de Selve would make the most sense, but I’m confused because most other sources point to Dinteville as the commissioner.
Thanks for the response,
Just a high school student writing a paper on The Ambassadors 🙂
The ambiguity in the sentence does indeed make it unclear who commissioned the painting. However, most sources attribute the commissioning of the painting “The Ambassadors” to Jean de Dinteville, who was the French ambassador to England at the time. Georges de Selve is depicted in the painting alongside Dinteville as a close friend, but it is generally accepted that it was Dinteville who commissioned Hans Holbein the Younger to create the work.