Hans Holbein the Younger, 'The Ambassadors', 1533
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.
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
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2008Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to TitianThe National Gallery (London)15 October 2008 - 18 January 2009
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2014Strange Beauty: Masters of the German RenaissanceThe National Gallery (London)19 February 2014 - 11 May 2014
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2015SoundscapesThe National Gallery (London)8 July 2015 - 6 September 2015
Bibliography
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1571R. Ascham, The Scholemaster, London 1571
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1787P. Remy, Catalogue de tableaux, marbres, bronzes, porcelaines, lustres, girandoles, feux, pendules & autres objets distingués, après le décès de M. Beaujeon, Paris, 25 April 1787
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1792J.-B.-P. Le Brun, Galerie des peintres flamands, hollandais et allemands, 3 vols, Paris 1792
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1801J. Britton and E.W. Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales, 19 vols, London 1801
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1867R.N. Wornum, Some Account of the Life and Works of Hans Holbein, London 1867
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1888Anon., 'Notice of a Picture Formerly Preserved at Polisy', Revue de Champagne et de Brie, XXIV, 1888
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1890S. Colvin, 'Letters', The Times, 1890
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1891S. Colvin, 'The Longford Pictures at the National Gallery', Art Journal, 1891, pp. 1-6
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1900M. Hervey, Holbein's 'Ambassadors': The Picture and the Men, London 1900
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1903W.F. Wickes, Holbein's 'Ambassadors' Unriddled, London 1903
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1913A.B. Chamberlain, Hans Holbein the Younger, London 1913
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1927J.B. Shaw, 'The Perspective Picture: A Freak of German Sixteenth Century Art', Apollo, VI, 1927, pp. 208-14
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1946Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, London 1946
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1950P. Ganz, The Paintings of Hans Holbein (first Complete Edition), London 1950
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1951F. Grossmann, 'Holbein Studies, I', The Burlington Magazine, XCIII, 1951, pp. 39-44
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1959Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The German Schools, London 1959
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1960K. Charlton, 'Holbein's "Ambassadors" and Sixteenth-Century Education', Journal of the History of Ideas, XXI, 1960, pp. 99-109
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1963E.R. Samuel, 'Death in the Glass. A New View of Holbein's "Ambassadors"', The Burlington Magazine, CV/727, 1963, pp. 436-41
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1964F.J.B. Watson, 'Letter', The Burlington Magazine, CVI/732, 1964
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1966J. Pope-Hennessy, The Portrait in the Renaissance, New York 1966
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1968E.L. Yonge, A Catalogue of Early Globes in the United States, New York 1968
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1969J. Baltrušaitis, Anamorphoses ou Magie artificielle des effets merveilleux, Paris 1969
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1971A. Salvini and H.W. Grohn, L'opera pittorica completa di Holbein il Giovane, Milan 1971
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1975K. Hoffmann, 'Hans Holbein d.J.:"Die Gesandten"', in A. Lenteritz et al. (eds), Festschrift für Georg Scheja zum 70. Geburtstag, Sigmaringen 1975, pp. 133-50
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1976C.K. Aked, 'The Ambassadors', Antiquarian Horology, 1976, pp. 70-7
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1977J. Baltrušaitis, Anamorphic Art, Cambridge 1977
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1977J.L. Ferrier, Holbein: The Ambassadors: Anatomie d'un chef-d'oeuvre, Paris 1977
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1977A. Schickman, '"Turning" Pictures in Shakespeare's England', Art Bulletin, 1977, pp. 67-70
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1979F. Hallyn, 'Holbein: La mort en abyme', Gentsche Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschchiedenis, 1979, pp. 1-13
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1981A. Baynes-Cope, 'The Investigation of a Group of Globes', Imago mundi, XXXIII/1, 1981, pp. 9-19
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1983D. King and D. Sylvester, The Eastern Carpet in the Western World from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries, (exh. cat. Hayward Gallery, 1983), London 1983
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1984D. Sutton, 'Aspects of British Collecting, XI: Paris-Londres', Apollo, 1984, pp. 334-45
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1985J. Rowlands, The Paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger, Oxford 1985
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1985M.V. Cadarso, 'La clave de "Los embajadores" de Holbein el Joven', Goya, 187-188, 1985, pp. 87-9
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1986O. Bonfait, 'Les collections des parlementaires parisiens du XVIIIe siècle', Revue de l'art, 73, 1986, pp. 28-48
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1987M. Roskill and C. Harbison, 'On the Nature of Holbein's Portraits', Word and Image, III/1, 1987, pp. 1-26
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1987M. Roston, 'Shakespeare's Artistic Allegiance', in Renaissance Perspectives in Literature and the Visual Arts, Princeton 1987, pp. 239-75
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1988R. Foster, 'The Ambassadors: Standing on Shifting Ground', The Listener, 1988, pp. 12-3
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1989R. Foster, Patterns of Thought. The Hidden Meaning of the Great Pavement of Westminster Abbey, London 1989
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1989D. Williams (ed.), Early Tudor England: Proceedings from the Harlaxton Symposium, Woodbridge 1989
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1990O. Calabrese, La intertextualidad en pintura: Una lectura de los Embajadores de Holbein, Valencia 1990
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1990M. Kemp, The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat, London 1990
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1990L. Konecny, '"L'accord interrompu": An Emblematic Source for Mathieu Le Nain', in K.-L. Selig and E. Sears (eds), The Verbal and the Visual. Essays in Honor of William Sebastian Heckscher, New York 1990, pp. 99-100
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1992M. Butor, Die Wörter in der Malerei, Frankfurt am Main 1992
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1993J.G. Links, Painting Fur, n.p. 1993
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1993P.C. Claussen, 'Der doppelte Boden unter Holbeins Gesandten', in A. Beyer, V. Lampugnani and G. Schweikhart (eds), Festschrift für Tilmann Buddensieg, Alfter 1993, pp. 177-202
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1994E.W. Ives, 'The Queen and the Painters: Anne Boleyn, Holbein and Tudor Royal Portraits', Apollo, 1994, pp. 36-45
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1995L. Maffei, Arte e cervello, Bologna 1995
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1995P. Stewart, 'Sue le frontispice (français) de Chamber', Gazette des beaux-arts, 1995, pp. 31-40
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1995R. White and J. Pilc, 'Analyses of Paint Media', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XVI, 1995, pp. 85-95
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1995M. Rasmussen, 'The Case of the Flutes in Holbein's "The Ambassadors"', Early Music, 1995, pp. 114-23
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1996Universitat de València, Cel i terrra: L'art del cartògrafs a la Universitat de Valencia (exh. cat. Sala d'Exposicions de la Universitat de Valencia, December 1996 - Jnauary 1997), Valencia 1996
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1997O. Bätschmann and P. Griener, Hans Holbein, London 1997
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1997J.V. Field and F.A.J.L. James, Science in Art: Works in the National Gallery That Illustrate the History of Science and Technology, Stanford in the Vale 1997
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1997S. Foister, 'Holbein in England. Ein Höhepunkt der Porträtmalerei', Belvedere, II, 1997, pp. 42-59
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1997S. Foister et al., Holbein's Ambassadors (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 5 November 1997 - 1 February 1998), London 1997
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1997V. Mayr, 'Der Bischof und der Totenkopf. Holbeins Gemälde "The Ambassadors" nach der jüngsten Restaurierung', Das Münster, L/2, 1997, pp. 128-34
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1998D.M. Klinger and A. Höttler, Ambrosius + Hans D.J. Holbein. Werkverzeichnis, Nürnberg 1998
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1998K. Lippincott, 'Review: Making and Meaning: Holbein's "Ambassadors"', Renaissance Studies, XII/4, 1998, pp. 545-50
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1998L. Monnas, 'Review of "Making and Meaning: Holbein's Ambassadors"', Renaissance Studies, XII/4, 1998, pp. 550-7
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1998A. Rowland-Jones, 'A Significance of Flutes', Early Music Review, XXXIX, 1998
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1998M. Wyld, 'The Restoration History of Holbein's "The Ambassadors"', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, XIX, 1998, pp. 4-25
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1999S. Buck, Hans Holbein 1497/98-1543, Cologne 1999
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1999J. Zwingenberger, The Shadow of Death in the Work of Hans Holbein the Younger, London 1999
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1999G. Berra, 'Immagini casuali, figure nascoste e natura antropomorfa nell'immaginario artistico rinascimentale', Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XLIII/2-3, 1999, pp. 358-419
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1999E.A.R. Brown, 'The Dinteville Family and the Allegory of Moses and Aaron Before Pharaoh', Metropolitan Museum Journal, XXXIV, 1999, pp. 73-100
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1999E. Dekker and K. Lippincott, 'The Scientific Instruments in Holbein's "Ambassadors": A Re-Examination', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXII, 1999, pp. 93-125
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1999S. Chedzey, 'An Encounter with "The Ambassadors"', Apollon, 1999, pp. 57-67
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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2001A. 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
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2002J. North, The Ambassadors' Secret. Holbein and the World of the Renaissance, New York 2002
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2002H. Kenaan, 'The "Unusual Character" of Holbein's "Ambassadors"', Artibus et historiae, XXIII/46, 2002
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2003S. Buck, Hans Holbein, 1497/98-1543: Portraitist of the Renaissance (exh. cat. Maurtishuis, 16 August - 16 November 2003), Zwolle 2003
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2004K. Bomford, 'Friendship and Immortality: Holbein's Ambassadors Revisited', Renaissance Studies, XVIII/4, 2004, pp. 544-81
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2005J. Snyder, Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575, ed. L. Silver, New Jersey 2005
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2008L. Syson et al., Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 15 October 2008 - 16 January 2009), London 2008
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2024S. 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.