The Ambassadors

I'm going to make two more points.

First of all, as you can no doubt tell, this is a perfect replica of Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors.

I'd be amazed if anyone in the room hadn't recognized it, but there it is.

There's two guys.

But there's a difference between something we simply overlooked and something the artist deliberately concealed.

Take Holbein's The Ambassadors, for instance.

At first, it's an impressive portrait of two men surrounded by objects, books, instruments, scientific tools, globes, but stretched across the foreground is something strange.

It almost looks like a distorted object, and if you stand at the right angle, it resolves into something much more recognizable, a skull.

Absolutely, yes.

And actually, my all-time favorite painting is Holbein's The Ambassadors, which it's technically two guys standing next to a big rack of junk.

But every single piece of it has a very special meaning.

So there's this sort of clever artistry there.

But I've always thought there was one picture that wasn't.

And the ambassadors also in the National Gallery is obviously that's one of Holbein's most famous pictures.

It's a picture of two, a portrait of two men who were, one was a French ambassador to London.

The other was a French bishop who came over to give some important information to Henry and Anne in 1533.

that I think is like out there, but pretty great.

And that's because this is something I study and talk about in class so much Holbein's painting, the ambassadors 1533.

And this is the painting that's got the two world traveling ambassadors in this hyper detailed scenario.

You can pull it up if you want, but, sort of in the background.