The Ambassadors (Holbein) the lower shelf repeats a portion of a cartographically imaginative map created in possibly 1530 and of unknown origin. The map is referred to as the Ambassadors' Globe due to its popularly known appearance in the painting. The work has been described as "one of the most staggeringly impressive portraits in Renaissance art." The most notable and famous of Holbein's symbols in the work, however, is the distorted skull which is placed in the bottom center of the composition. The skull, rendered in anamorphic perspective, another invention of the Early Renaissance, is meant to be a visual puzzle as the
Montague Holbein sandwiches, but was eventually pulled out when he could not make any headway against the tides. On 27 August 1902, Holbein started his third attempt of the English Channel from France to Dover in 63 degree F water. However, he was taken out of the water within a mile of Dover after an attempt of 22 hours 21 minutes. His crew used two powerful acetylene lamps to follow him through the night as he started at 3:20 pm. He did not repeat any attempts thereafter. He once swam 43 miles in the Solent. Montague Holbein Montague Alfred Holbein (11 August