Hans Holbein the Younger, 'The Ambassadors', 1533

The Ambassadors

Hans Holbein the Younger

Not on display

About the work

Overview

Jean de Dinteville, the man on the left, is shown on his second diplomatic mission to England on behalf of Francis I, King of France. To the right is his close friend, Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. This portrait was painted at a time of religious upheaval in Europe. Although the pope had refused to annul Henry VIII, King of England’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon which resulted in a break with the Roman Catholic Church, in 1533 he married Anne Boleyn. The array of objects on the table seem to allude to discord; the arithmetic book, for example, is open at the page concerning mathematical division.

The portrait is a supreme display of Holbein’s skill in composing images and in manipulating oil paint to recreate a variety of textures. If viewed from a particular angle the elongated shape between the men’s feet becomes a skull. Equally hidden at the top left of the picture is a crucifix that hints at the hope of redemption in the resurrected Christ.

In-depth

This grand double portrait by Hans Holbein, the most accomplished portraitist of the sixteenth century, does more than show off the wealth and status of its sitters. It was painted at a time of religious upheaval in Europe – Henry VIII, King of England, would soon break with the Roman Catholic Church as the pope would not annul his marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. The objects on the table seem to allude to the complexities of the political climate. It’s also a supreme display of Holbein’s skill in composing images and in manipulating oil paint to recreate a variety of textures.

Holbein made this painting on his second trip to England in the early 1530s. We know that he was working on it in 1533 as he has dated it beneath his signature on the marble floor behind the figure on the left. The artist did not usually sign his paintings and the signature here is more elaborate than other known examples, suggesting that he was particularly proud of this work.

In the same year as the portrait was painted, Henry married his second wife, Anne Boleyn. He bypassed papal authority by doing so, establishing the Church of England as independent from Rome and placing himself at its head. The break of religious and political ties with Catholic Europe was worrying for Francis I, King of France. The man on the left is his ambassador Jean de Dinteville, whom he had tasked to report back to him on the situation. Dinteville, one of Francis’s most trusted courtiers, attended the wedding on the King’s behalf. This was his second diplomatic mission to England and he would visit the country a further three times, conveying messages between the two monarchs. The man to the right is his close friend Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. Selve was also on a diplomatic mission, although we do not know its exact nature. Four years earlier he had attended the Diet of Speyer, a conference at which the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V attempted to reconcile Catholics and Protestants. Both men were in their twenties when this was painted: Latin inscriptions on the scabbard of Dinteville’s sword and the edge of the book on which Georges is leaning reveal that they are 28 and 24 years old respectively (‘aetatis suae 25’, meaning ‘he is in his 25th year’).

Dinteville was required to stay in London for Anne’s coronation in June and for the birth of Henry and Anne’s daughter Elizabeth in September (Francis was her godfather). Surviving correspondence reveals that Dinteville was very unhappy on his extended visit. He described himself as ‘the most melancholy, weary and wearisome ambassador that was ever seen’, but the arrival of his friend, who was in London briefly from April to June, cheered him up. This portrait commemorates their friendship, as well as this brief stint together in England. By placing the table between them, Holbein separates the two men but also provides them with a prop to lean on, so they appear to be posing naturally.

The table also offers space to display a wide range of objects. Renaissance portraits often included objects such a musical instruments, coins, books or flowers, enriching the portrayal of the sitter by alluding to their hobbies, intellect, culture, marital status or religious fervour. As a group, these objects have been interpreted as a visual essay on the religious and political turmoil of mid-sixteenth-century Europe. The top shelf shows instruments used to measure time, altitude and the position of the stars and other celestial bodies. On the far left is a celestial globe, mapping the position of stars and planets; the multi-faceted box-like object with dials on each face is called a polyhedral dial, a type of sundial. Such objects were made by Henry VIII’s royal astronomer, Nicholas Kratzer: Holbein’s portrait showing Kratzer making a polyhedral dial is in the Louvre, Paris. Technical instruments like this were extremely precious, and their inclusion also shows off the men’s understanding of mathematics and science.

The lower shelf is devoted mainly to music. It is dominated by a lute, its case abandoned face down on the floor; one of the strings is broken. The book to the left is an arithmetic book, wedged open with a set square on the page relating to mathematical division. Under the neck of the lute, resting on a set of flutes – one is missing, which suggests a lack of harmony – is a Lutheran hymn book. The script and score are clear enough to read, revealing that Holbein deliberately chose to show two pages which do not follow each other in the standard form of the Lutheran hymn book. The hymns are ‘Come Holy Ghost’ and ‘The Ten Commandments’, which Georges may have wanted to include because they express Christian unity. The globe on this shelf is terrestrial and includes the hamlet of Polisy, about 200 kilometres south-east of Paris, where Dinteville had his chateau and where this painting would hang: an inventory dated 1589 records it decorating the Great Hall.

Visitors to Polisy would have been able to admire the grandeur and intellect of the sitter, whom we assume developed the picture’s rhetoric in conversation with the artist, as well as Holbein’s incredible technical skill. The sheen of Dinteville’s pink satin tunic is dazzling, its smoothness contrasting with the rich, dense lynx fur lining his black cape. Holbein has painted the individual hairs around its edges, giving a sense of its luxuriously soft texture. The gold tassels hanging from the scabbard of Dinteville’s dagger were created using Holbein’s usual gilding technique: he painted the individual strands in a brownish colour, covered them with a layer of oil mordant (a sticky substance which acted like a glue) and then secured gold leaf to create these delicate, swaying threads. Despite its detail, areas of the picture betray the speed with which Holbein was working. We can see the individual knots of the Turkish carpet on the table; the grey areas are underpainting which Holbein has simply left bare, only altering the tone slightly here and there to show how the textile ripples slightly at the edges.

Renaissance portraiture was often commissioned as a reminder of the frailty of life, or memento mori. The most unusual element of the picture – a distorted, elongated object that appears to hover between the men’s feet – can only be seen properly if you look up at the painting from the bottom right corner. Viewed from here, the shape reveals itself to be a large skull, an effect called anamorphosis which can also be seen in an unusual portrait of Henry’s son Edward VI in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Equally hidden at the top left of the picture, pinned to the green damask curtain, is a crucifix. It might hint at Christian unity because it expresses the universal hope of salvation through Christ’s sacrifice.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ('The Ambassadors')
Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger
Artist dates: 1497/8 - 1543
Date made: 1533
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 207 × 209.5 cm
Inscription summary: Signed; Dated and inscribed
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1890
Inventory number: NG1314
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 20th-century Replica Frame

Provenance

The painting is first recorded in the inventory dated 21–24 January 1589 of Louise de Rochechouart (died 1589), widow of Guillaume de Dinteville (1505–1559) in the great hall of the Dinteville family chateau of Polisy, near Bar-sur-Seine in the Champagne region of France. Guillaume de Dinteville was the younger brother of Jean de Dinteville (1504–1555), seigneur de Polisy, who commissioned the painting and must have brought NG 1314 back from England to France, probably in November 1533, at the end of his posting as ambassador that year, although three further visits to England took place in 1535, in 1536 and in 1537. Jean de Dinteville had no children, so on his death Polisy passed to his brother and then to his widow, whose death occasioned the taking of the inventory. The painting is recorded as ‘Vng Grand tableau ou sont en paintz le feuz Sieurs de Polisy & dauxerre’ (‘a large picture in which the late Lords of Polisy and Auxerre are painted’). This describes a portrait of Jean de Dinteville and his brother François de Dinteville, Bishop of Auxerre (1498–1554), rather than Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur (1508/9–1541), who is identified as Jean de Dinteville’s companion in the seventeenth-century notice of the painting at Polisy; however, the misidentification is understandable in view of the fact that the Bishop of Auxerre had also occupied part of the chateau of Polisy. The allegorical family portrait with the subject of Moses and Aaron (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) also hung at Polisy over the fireplace in the chamber occupied by the Bishop of Auxerre. As these are the only large paintings mentioned here, and as NG 1314 and the Moses and Aaron descended together in family collections over the following two centuries, there can be little doubt that the portrait described must be NG 1314.

On the death of Louise de Rochechouart in 1589 the painting passed to Claude de Dinteville (died 1619), Louise’s daughter with Guillaume de Dinteville, who had married François I de Cazillac, marquis de Cessac (died 1593) in 1562. The painting presumably passed next to their elder son, Charles (died 1633), and then to his elder son, François II de Cazillac, marquis de Cessac (died 1679), who married Marie de Choiseul (died 1661). François appears to have removed the painting from Polisy in 1653, as mentioned in three evidently related contemporary documents. One of these, a fragment of a document now in the National Gallery Archive, dated 1653, is annotated ‘Remarques sur le sujet d’un tableau excellent des Srs d’Intevile Polizy et de George de Selve Evesque de Lauuour contenant leurs employs, et tems deleur deceds’ (‘remarks on the subject of an excellent picture of the seigneurs of Dinteville Polisy and Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur, containing their deeds and dates of their deaths’) and describes the painting thus:

En ce tableau est represente au naturel Mestre Jean de Dinteville, chevalier sieur de Polisy pres de Bar sur seyne, Bailly de Troyes, qui fut Ambassadeur en Angleterre pour le Roy Francois premier en années 1532 & 1533 & de puis Gouverneur de Monsieur charles de France second Files diceluy Roy, lequel Charles mourut a forest monslier en l’an 1543, & le dict Sr de D’Intevile en lan 1555 Sepulture en Leglise du dict Polisy. & fort vertueux & qui fut Ambassadeur pres de Lempereur Charles cinquiesme, le dict Evesque Fils de Messire Iean de Selve premier president au parlement de Paris iceluy Sr Evesque decede en l’an 1541 ayant des la susdicte année 1532 ou 1533 passe en Angleterere par permission du Roy pour visiter le susdict sieur de Dintevile son intime amy &de toute sa famile, & eux deux ayant recontre en Angleterre un excellent peinctre holandais lemployerent pour faire iceluy tableau qui a esté soigneusement conserue au mesme lieu de Polisy iusques en lan 1653.

The document not only identifies the sitters and gives their biographical details but also states that the painting had been carefully preserved at Polisy until 1653.

Very similar information is given in two further documents. The first, a memorandum concerning the contents of three letters relating to ‘l’excellent tableau par un peintre holandois, Holben’ (‘the excellent picture by a Dutch painter, Holbein’), was sent to the Godefroy brothers (Theodore 1580–1649 and Jacques 1587–1642), French historians of the seventeenth century, by Nicolas Camusat (1575–1655), a canon of Troyes and historian who had become interested in the Dinteville family history. The second document is a copy dated 1654 of a memorandum written by Camusat himself, also referring to the painting ‘fait de la main d’un Hollandois’ (‘made by the hand of a Dutchman’) and which, he says, ‘est estimée la plus riche et mieux travaillée qui soit en France’ (‘considered to be the richest and best worked in France’). Camusat was acquainted with Claude de Dinteville, marquise de Cazillac, and obtained details of the Dinteville family history from her. Both documents corroborate the parchment’s identification of the sitters in the painting and the circumstances under which it was painted (de Selve’s visit to England). Both also record that the painting had been removed from the chateau of Polisy and taken to Paris by François de Cazillac, marquis de Cessac: the copy of the memorandum by Camusat dated 1654 states that it is ‘à present a Paris, au logis de M. de Sessac’ (‘at present in Paris, at the residence of M. de Sessac’), while the memorandum concerning the letters sent by Camusat says of it ‘comme appartenant au seigneur du lieu, Sr. de Sessac, jusques en l’année 1653 qu’il la faict transporter à Paris, en sa maison proche la parroisse de St. Sulpice’ (‘as belonging to the lord of the place [i.e. Polisy], seigneur de Sessac, until the year 1653, when he had it transported to Paris, to his house near the parish of St Sulpice’). François II de Cazillac sold Polisy and evidently settled in the chateau of Milhars in the Tarn, restored by his father, to which he may perhaps have taken NG 1314.

NG 1314 presumably passed to the daughter of François II de Cazillac, Charlotte-Marie de Cazillac, baronne de Cazillac, who in 1651 married Charles le Genevois, marquis de Blaigny, and whose only child, Marie Renée le Genevois (died 1721), married François Voisin in 1684. Marie Renée le Genevois Voisin made her will of 27 April 1716 at Albi. She had no children and sold the barony of Cazillac in 1689 to the duc de Bouillon, Viscount Turenne, but left the marquisat of Milhars to her niece, Marie Jeanne Voisin (died 1727), who in 1674 married Chrétien François de Lamoignan, marquis de Basville (1644–1709). NG 1314 evidently thus came into the possession of the de Lamoignon family, since it is next recorded in the inventory of Chrétien François de Lamoignan’s daughter-in-law, Louise Gon de Bergonne, on 30 January 1728, either at Milhars or at Paris, where she died. Louise was wife of the lawyer Chrétien II de Lamoignon, marquis de Basville et de Milhars (1676–1729), Avocat du roi and a high-ranking member of the French Parliament. In the inventory attached to her will dated 30 January 1728, the painting is listed as ‘deux personages anciens avec globes et instruments de musique’ (‘two historic figures with globes and musical instruments’); it was one of a pair of portraits valued at the high sum of 3,000 livres, along with ‘l’endurcissement de Pharaon’ (‘the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart’). It was subsequently listed in 1759 in the inventory of her son Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon (1712–1759), minister of Louis XVI, President of the French Parliament, as ‘deux ambassadeurs de France en Angleterre avec les attributes des différents arts’ (‘two French ambassadors in England with the attributes of different arts’), along with ‘Moïse devant le Pharaon’ (‘Moses before Pharaoh’), both paintings still hung in the same room where they were recorded in 1728, probably at Milhars, but in the latter case are likely to have been removed to Paris when Milhars was sold in 1765. Chrétien Guillaume’s son Chrétien François II de Lamoignon, marquis de Basville (1735–1789), Conseiller au parlement, acted as executor to Nicolas Beaujon (1718–1786),banker to Louis XV, and he appears to have used the opportunity of the sale of Beaujon’s possessions to dispose of the two paintings he owned himself. On 25 April 1787 NG 1314 was offered for sale at Paris with Beaujon’s effect (Hôtel d’Evreux, Rémy and Juliot fils, 25 April to 4 May, lot 15/6 bis):

Un autre tableau de quatre pieds et demi ou environ de hauteur sur près de huit pieds de large; il représentedeux ambassadeurs, MM de Selve er d’Avaux, l’un Ambassadeur à Venise, et l’autre dans les pays du Nord, avec le costume des nations chez lesquelles ils étoient envoyés; et les attributes des arts qu’ils aimoient. On voit aussi une tête de mort en perspective, à prendre de l’angle gauche du tableau, et qui a l’agrément de rassembler en face à un grand poisson. Le tableau est du même Holbein, mais la date de l’année n’y est pas. Il est du règne de François I. ou de Henri II.

This was offered together with the Moses and Aaron, lot 16 (as ‘La Cour de François II … by Holbein’).

NG 1314 was bought at the Beaujon sale by the dealer JeanBaptiste-Pierre Lebrun (1748–1813), who commissioned the engraving published in 1792 for his three-volume history, Galerie des Peintres Flamands, Hollandais et Allemands, said to show ‘les portraits de MM. De Selve et d’Avaux, l’un fut Ambassadeur à Venise, l’autre fut dans le nord’ (‘the portraits of MM. de Selve and d’Avaux, one was Ambassador to Venice, the other was in the north’). According to the text accompanying the engraving, by 1792 the painting had been sold in England. It was bought from the dealer Buchanan by Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor (1749/50–1828), in 1808–9. The painting hung in the first-floor gallery at Longford Castle, Wiltshire: in 1814 it was described by John Britton as ‘Two full-length portraits of a philosopher and a mathematician, with several musical, astronomical, and mathematical instruments, by Holbein’. It was sold to the National Gallery in 1890 by William Pleydell-Bouverie, 5th Earl of Radnor (1841–1900), for £55,000 along with two other paintings, one by Moroni (NG 1316), then attributed to Titian, and one by del Mazo (NG 1315), then attributed to Velázquez, and purchased by a special government grant of £25,000 and with gifts of £10,000 each from Charles Cotes (1846–1903), Sir E. Guinness Bt, Lord Iveagh (1847–1927) and Lord Rothschild (1842–1918).

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Susan Foister, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The German Paintings before 1800’, London 2024; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2008

Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian

The National Gallery (London)

15 October 2008 - 18 January 2009
2014

Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance

The National Gallery (London)

19 February 2014 - 11 May 2014
2015

Soundscapes

The National Gallery (London)

8 July 2015 - 6 September 2015

Bibliography

1571

R. Ascham, The Scholemaster, London 1571
1787

P. Remy, Catalogue de tableaux, marbres, bronzes, porcelaines, lustres, girandoles, feux, pendules & autres objets distingués, après le décès de M. Beaujeon, Paris, 25 April 1787
1792

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1888

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1890

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1927

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1964

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1966

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1968

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1975

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1976

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1977

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1977

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1979

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1981

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1984

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1985

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1985

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1986

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1988

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1989

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1989

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1990

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1990

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1992

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1994

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1995

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1995

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1995

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1995

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1996

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1997

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1997

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1997

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1997

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1997

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1998

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1998

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1998

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1998

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1998

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1999

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1999

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1999

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1999

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1999

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1999

S. Chedzey, 'An Encounter with "The Ambassadors"', Apollon, 1999, pp. 57-67
2001

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2001

A. Roy and M. Wyld, '"The Ambassadors" and Holbein's Techniques for Painting on Panel', in M. Roskill and J.O. Hand (eds), Hans Holbein: Paintings, Prints, and Reception, Washington 2001, pp. 96-107
2002

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2002

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2003

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2004

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2005

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2008

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2024

S. Foister, National Gallery Catalogues: The German Paintings before 1800, 2 vols, London 2024

Frame

This ebonised box frame was made at the Gallery in 1996, and is crafted from oak. The design is based on a sixteenth-century Northern European box frame, featuring a wide, plain frieze. The outer moulding includes a stepped hollow and the sight moulding has a gilt reel.

This frame, with its shallow outer moulding, was designed to allow a side view of the skull in Holbein’s The Ambassadors.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

Insights

Who were the French ambassadors so elegantly depicted in Holbein's masterpiece and how did King Henry VIII's astronomer become involved? Find out all this and more with Susan Foister, our Deputy Director and Director of Public Engagement.

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More works by Hans Holbein the Younger

A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)

Hans Holbein the Younger

A solemn woman wearing a soft cap of dense white fur sits with a red squirrel in her lap and a glossy-feathered starling at her shoulder. Common pets in the fifteenth-century, these animals also have a symbolic meaning and serve as clues to the sitter’s identity. She is thought to be Anne Lovell,...

Not on display

Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan

Hans Holbein the Younger

This elegant young woman is Christina of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Christian of Denmark. In 1538, King Henry VIII of England was looking for a fourth wife, after the death of Jane Seymour the previous year. As Henry’s official court artist, Holbein was sent to Brussels to capture the...

Room 11