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
The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb for what purpose the painting was created. Various suggestions have been offered, including as a predella for an altarpiece, a free-standing work, or an ornament for a sepulchre. In 1999, the art historians Oskar Bätschmann and Pascal Griener raised the possibility that the panel was intended to form part of a Holy Tomb, perhaps as a lid to be laid over a sepulchre. It is known that Holbein used a body fished out of the Rhine as a model for the work. The panel has attracted fascination and praise since it was created. The Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky was captivated