Talk:The Ambassadors (Holbein)

Sextant???
I neither see one, nor can I expect one, since the sextant wasn't invented until 1757 (see reflecting instrument) and the octant was not known before 1730. If you can point out what instrument is being mis-labelled, I can try identifying it correctly (old scientific instruments is a hobby of mine).

There is a torquetum and polyhedral sundial on the right and what appear to be two celestial globes (not terrestrial). --Michael Daly (talk) 21:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The globe on the lower shelf is terrestrial . I don't know about the instruments, although see this . "The objects on the upper shelf include a celestial globe, a portable sundial and various other instruments used for understanding the heavens and measuring time. Among the objects on the lower shelf is a lute, a case of flutes, a hymn book, a book of arithmetic and a terrestrial globe" say the NG. It would be nice if someone who understands this stuff could write this up. Johnbod (talk) 22:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, to my fading old eyes, the lower globe looked like an 18th c. illustrated star map I have (with constellation figures draw in). Oh well... I guess I should see the original...


 * The differences between what is written in the article and what is in the painting suggest to me that the article is, in parts, bordering on nonsense. The French version of this page looks a little closer to reasonable, but my knowledge of art and the topic of the painting precludes my making any changes.  I only stumbled here while verifying the links to the sextant page.  --Michael Daly (talk) 17:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No knowledge of art should be needed to improve the description of the objects depicted. Unsurprisingly, we don't seem to have anyone with knowledge of both areas. Johnbod (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Skull is a signasture?
In my school books, the interpretation of the skull's meaning (stated as fact) is that it's Holbein's signature: the reasoning being that his surname is Hohl + Bein = "hollow bone". 89.76.213.122 (talk) 16:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This is certainly a valid interpretation, though I wouldn't call it a fact. qp10qp (talk) 19:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

National Gallery (2014) The narrator explaining this painting in the documentary says the painting is about a murder. Has anyone noticed that the left eye socket of the skull is damaged at the top?

She also says there is a crucifix top left of the painting. I have yet to spot it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.178.136.32 (talk) 01:45, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Identity of man on the right
I have added a "dubious" tag to the interpretation that this is not de Selve. The emphasis given to this reidentification, cited to Giles Hudson, Annals of Science, 2003, gives the reader the impression that this is conclusive. Unfortunately, I do not have access to that article, but I have several books and articles dated later than 2003 that do not mention it. According to the present article, Hudson's theory is based on the 1589 inventory that identifies the man on the right as the Bishop of Auxerre; this inventory is known to scholars and the identification has been regarded as a mistake (Foister et al, Holbein's Ambassadors, 102, "Provenance", n1). Hervey's original identification of this man as de Selve was based on a seventeenth-century inventory—so if Hudson has proved her and the rest wrong, all credit to him. But for the time being, we need to have a quote from his article (is he certain or speculative?), since his theory has not gained acceptance in Holbein studies, unless I am mistaken. At present, in any case, the notion is given undue weight.

John North, in The Ambassadors' Secret, 2002 edition (published before the Hudson article, admittedly), has this to say:


 * "Riccardo Famiglietti recently found what is at present the earliest known written source claiming to identify the sitters. Dating from 1589, it makes them out to be Jean de Dinteville and his brother François, bishop of Auxerre. This was a natural enough supposition to be made by a person with limited local knowledge, since the two brothers lived together on the family estates at the end of their lives, but it is almost certainly mistaken. The bishop of Auxerre was at the French court on the date commemorated in the double portrait, having just returned from service in Rome. On 28 March he despatched a letter to his brother in London, asking him to tell the English king that he wished Henry could be at the forthcoming interview that he, François, would be having with the pope. There is no hint in the letter of any plans to visit London.


 * "Hervey's view has prevailed, and almost all subsequent work on the painting has rested heavily on her outstanding study of it. The dual portrait is explicitly signed and dated 1533, in which year Dinteville was in London, on his second diplomatic visit, to protect the interests of the French king, François I, at the court of Henry VIII. The bishop leans on a book, an inscription on the edge of which puts him in his twenty-fifth year, while Dinteville carries a dagger with an embossed inscription on the sheath putting him in his twenty-ninth year ... Despite a number of uncertainties about the precise timing of the bishop's visit to London—he arrived between February and Easter, and left before the end of May, although he might conceivably have returned—the general coherence of the evidence asembled by Hervey and others is very satisfying". (North, 8–9.)

OK, I'm going to leave these comments up here for a few days, and then, unless stayed, I propose to reduce the Hudson view to a footnote. qp10qp (talk) 00:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Hudson seems only to be a review of the North book, so presumably draws mainly or entirely from that, which from the above seems happy to stay with Hervey. So I think a footnote from North is enough. Johnbod (talk) 03:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Why "unresolved"?
By the way, the assertion at the end of that paragraph that "Unresolved is why the inscription on the side of the book upon which the figure on the right is leaning states "AETATIS SVAE 25" ("his age is 25), while the figure on the left's dagger has the inscription "AET. SVAE 29" (abbreviated Latin for "he is 29")" strikes me as odd: there is nothing unresolved to me about the ages of the two men as given in the picture. qp10qp (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "unresolved", I expect, because it conflicts with the new theory. Johnbod (talk) 20:26, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Aha, unreconciled! qp10qp (talk) 21:07, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

terrestrial globe
Where exactly is the ambassador's hand (resting on table) pointing to on the terrestrial globe? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cseewiki (talk • contribs) 20:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Anamorphic skull
The article currently reads: "the viewer must approach the painting nearly from the side to see the form morph into an accurate rendering of a human skull". Last time I saw this painting (maybe 30 years ago), the gallery had it on a stand by itself. I don't think I was able to make any sense of the streak in the centre of it from the left side. As I moved to the right side of the painting, the streak became recognisably a skull. Yet, not accurately: it remained horizontally elongated, as I think it is in the photo. It appeared that the only way in which the skull might be seen in accurate proportion would be from exactly beside the right side of the painting - a position from which, in fact, none of the painting's surface could be seen. Freaky! --Wikiain (talk) 01:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I've just been trying this on my computer screen. You need to be looking down on the picture for the skull to appear normal.  To me this suggests the stairwell theory makes sense, but the skull would appear to people walking down the stairs, not up as stated in the article. Bombot (talk) 05:27, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Working with the actual picture in the gallery, it would work well if the painting was hung just beside a doorway, perhaps to/from more intimate rooms. As you came into the room with the painting a glance to your right would show the skull nicely - no stairs are required. Johnbod (talk) 11:34, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The fascinating Video proposing an explanation as to how the anamorphic projection was made comes close to all of these. It proposes that the picture was to be seen by people entering through one of two doors to the room in which it was hung.  Though it also says (at 6.54) "you need to cover one eye".  Not a normal expectation of a viewer.  One eye has to be allowed life, the other to be played dead.  That can work if, as in the National Gallery when I saw it, the picture is on an easel and one can approach it directly from the side - but it presumably won't work if the picture is on a wall.  So, it seems, even closer to what I was suggesting.  But much depends on what is going to be accepted as a "correct" view of the image.  The video accepts that filling a perfect square, while intuitively attractive, has a degree of arbitrariness.  And BTW are there things to discuss about whether in that time perfection of form was supposed to lie in the circular (or spherical) rather than the square, and the extent to which death should be represented as perfectly formed?  --Wikiain (talk) 00:50, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Anamorphic paintings weren't all that uncommon in the mid-sixteenth century. Holbein's successor as court painter, William Scrots, painted an anamorphic portrait of Henry VIII's successor, Edward VI. That portrait appears to have a small scoop cut out of the right hand side of the frame: enlarge the image on Scrots's wiki page. In that image you can see the letters E and P (for Edwardus Princeps I'd guess), with the P on the left noticeably larger than the E on the right. In that case the artist clearly meant the image to be viewed from the right, to equalize the size of the letters. I can't see any similar clue for the skull, though.Thomas Peardew (talk) 15:48, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Hymn/psalm book
The text says "hymnbook", the caption "psalmbook". Which is right? The detail-picture doesn't look like Luther's translation of Psalm XIX. And should WP say "hymnbook" and "psalmbook" or "hymnal" and "psalter"? I'd incline to the modern terms, "hymnbook" and "psalmbook". --Wikiain (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Hans Holbein the Younger - The Ambassadors - Google Art Project.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Hans Holbein the Younger - The Ambassadors - Google Art Project.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on April 28, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-04-28. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! — howcheng  {chat} 20:39, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Why fragments showing the globe and the psalmbook are of such poor quality?
The painting itself is of ENORMOUS resolution (more than 22 thousand pix in each direction), yet the "fragments" showing the globe and the psalmbook are poor quality scans from some printed matter (a book, I suppose). Why iit is so? The relevant fragment of the painting itself (the jpg file) viewed in actual size (@ 100% zoom) are several times as big as those scans - and their quality is much, much better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.21.126.49 (talk) 08:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I updated the globe detail, but I can't figure out how to manipulate the image so that you can look at the psalm book from a top-down view. — howcheng  {chat} 02:41, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed external link
I have been working on a system for annotating high-resolution images, called ImageDiver, and have used it to create an  album   for The Ambassadors. The annotations in the album mirror the content of the Wikipedia page.

I request that a link to this page be added to the external links section, reading perhaps:

The Ambassadors, Zoomable and Annotated

In my own opinion, the ImageDiver page serves as a useful complement to the narrative prose of the Wikipedia article, in that it allows image-based navigation of the descriptive material associated with the painting.

As the author of ImageDiver, I have a conflict of interest, but hope that other editors will agree that the link will be helpful to Wikipedia readers, on the merits.

ImageDiver is a personal, not a corporate, project. I am not representing anyone else nor any other entity in this. ImageDiver albums are hosted at Amazon's S3.

In this note, I have attempted to adhere to Suggestions_for_COI_compliance.

ChrisGoad (talk) 18:17, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok, added Johnbod (talk) 19:59, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks! ChrisGoad (talk) 22:38, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Square and compasses?
I believe the object under the neck of the lute to be a set of compasses. Am I correct that the object acting as a bookmark in the book of arithmetic is a mason's square? Nuttyskin (talk) 15:54, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

The Cosmati floor is also symbolic of plenipotentiary power, among the 5 Monarchies of the Papal Concilium (England: Westminster, France: Reims, HRE: Aachen, Spain and Portugal were outside of Christian influence at the time, but one might add Ravenna for the Papacy), see Craig Wright, The Maze and the Warrior, with the imputation that these floors are truncated labyrinths. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.9.39.250 (talk) 12:03, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

In re: Anamorphic skull section content
It is ridiculous for interpretation of a classic Holbein feature in the visual arts, to rest on a pop webpage about words. 71.239.87.100 (talk) 21:47, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree the source is not ideal. But I'd be surprised if this hypothesis wasn't lifted from elsewhere. Critics have had nearly 500 years to comment on this painting, after all. I see that Anamorphosis is devoid of any sources at all for Holbein, apart from an undated National Gallery publication. There is quite a full review of the Foister et al (1997) book, from the Sixteenth Century Journal here: Martinevans123 (talk) 12:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I see there is already some discussion about the skull, and how it may be viewed, six threads above. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Further criticism
On further reading, this article appears to be beyond simple editing, apart from those who created the existing version.

To begin with, the current article structure ignores any substantive background on the artist (no section appearing, rather admixing the introduction to Holbein into "Description" of the painting). It then (actually concurrently) launches into interpretations before careful image description (all the while largely ignoring the need to present consistent, solid, verifiable sources). In general, all parts of the "Description" intermix analysis and "Interpretation", in the manner of a Sister Wendy presentation. One comes away from the Description, with the image un-described.

Likewise, when one makes their way to the Interpretation section, it is barren of interpretations of most of the painting's elements: interpretation is limited to review of the debate over the identity of the two portraiture subjects. Then, as if to make late amends for the earlier shortcomings in description, it closes the interpretation with a first visual presentation (description) of an important aspect of the image content (the instruments), via a collection of images.

In short, this reads as if a lower form student essay: It is non-encyclopedic in actual (versus apparent) structure, and near to chaos in its content, and so a confusing jumble to any reasonably educated reader — and intermittently without valid citations for the intermingled descriptions and interpretations (esp. early).

The article simply cannot be properly sorted by any other than its original contributor(s), not without losing track of "what came from what" (of the limited sources that appear), and certainly not without raising ire — for its editing would make it almost completely unrecognizable relative to its current form.

71.239.87.100 (talk) 22:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:SOFIXIT Johnbod (talk) 23:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Lute - Luther
The lute became a symbol of Luther, e.g. in Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent. A broken lutestring could be a more direct comment on Luther's movement as a 'busted flush' than is suggested in the article. On the other hand, perhaps this symbolic meaning only developed after The Ambassadors was painted, though the pun Lut(h)e(r) was always available. Amberiotis (talk) 11:28, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

His theory, that it is
Removed all this: Johnbod (talk) 19:28, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Please explain...
“Holbein used symbols to link his figures to show the same things on the table.”

I am unable to understand this sentence. Please explain. 2001:44B8:3102:BB00:5536:992F:8531:266A (talk) 07:54, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Indeed - does this help? Johnbod (talk) 12:29, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Reference styles
Hi there, would anyone mind if I regularise the footnote styles as Harvard style with link, using {{sfn|Name|Year|p=x} or ? I've added content using these (which was among the styles used on the page when I started). For transparency, I did convert some citations to this also, and pulled out links which had been added. I'm ok to go to perhaps unlinked citations which was predominant if there is a strong reason for that, but I suspect it was in use because the templates for short foot notes were not in place or not well known when the content was added. I'll leave this a week or so before taking any action. Jim Killock (talk) 13:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I don't like and can't use this style (but thanks for asking). Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Consistency is important and, thanks to your efforts, we've achieved it here. Thanks, too, for monitoring the page for editors (like me) making additions in the wrong style and putting them right. AntientNestor (talk) 09:14, 30 March 2024 (UTC)