The History of Art reveals a deep Tudor mystery - a talk by member Chris Forkan - 29th September 2026

Holbein's "The Ambassadors" is rated as one of his masterpieces yet so much

of the rich symbolism passes the viewer by.

"It 's purpose was to persuade Henry 8th away from breaking with Rome. This

was expressed by the discord that would follow that action, and expressed by

the broken lute string and the flute missing from the set of six among many,

many other demonstrations of symbolism.

The other main message was delivered by the amnormorphosis skull at the foot

of the painting. Death was all around you but you only realised it when seen

at one angle, here the symbolic one of 27 degrees. It was a momento mori.

Equally the actual heart of the painting was the difficult to see crucifix

at the top left. Basically the crucifixion gave us our salvation but you had

to look hard for it as in this painting."