Hans Holbein the Younger - The Ambassadors, 1533, 207 x 210 cm. This picture features two wealthy, educated and powerful young men - Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador to England in 1533; and Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. The picture is in a tradition showing learned men with books and instruments. 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. In the foreground is the distorted image of a skull, a symbol of mortality. When seen from a point to the right of the picture the distortion is corrected.