Anamorphosis before 1583. "The Ambassadors" (c. 1533) by Hans Holbein the Younger is well known for the prominent oblique anamorphic transformation in the painting. In this artwork, a distorted shape lies diagonally across the bottom of the frame. Viewing this from an acute angle transforms it into the plastic image of a human skull. The painting is regarded as a "vanitas" - a meditation on the transience of life - with the skull a symbolic "memento mori". The altered perspective required to see the image reflects the contemporary practice of painting skulls on the reverse of otherwise tranquil paintings. Four centuries
Hans Holbein the Younger "Oberried Altarpiece", the "Solothurn Madonna", and the "Passion". Only when Basel's reformers turned to iconoclasm in the later 1520s did his freedom and income as a religious artist suffer. Holbein continued to produce religious art, but on a much smaller scale. He designed satirical religious woodcuts in England. His small painting for private devotion, "Noli Me Tangere", has been taken as an expression of his personal religion. Depicting the moment when the risen Christ tells Mary Magdalene not to touch him, Holbein adheres to the details of the bible story. The 17th-century diarist John Evelyn wrote that he "never saw