NATIONAL GALLERY, The Ambassadors Holbein

Now let me tell you about one of the National Gallery's most admired paintings, the portrait of the so-called French Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger. Signed and dated at the bottom, the painting is the magnum opus of this German-born painter, and one of the most mature and complex portraits painted during the Renaissance. The artist painted it in London, where he had moved and quickly become one of the favourites in the court of King Henry VIII, who made the painter his personal portraitist.

You can already gather that this painting is a celebratory work by its impressive size of two meters per side; it was commissioned by Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador to London, to commemorate his friend Georges de Selve's visit during Easter of 1533: his friend is the figure depicted on the right wearing sober yet refined ecclesiastical clothing. The floor resembles that of Westminster Abbey, confirming the London setting of the scene....