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 stylistic succession to Holbein's work to bridge the middle of the century". Nevertheless, "modern" painting in England may be said to have begun with Holbein. That later artists were aware of his work is evident in their own, sometimes explicitly. Hans Eworth, for example, painted two full-length copies in the 1560s of Holbein's Henry VIII derived from the Whitehall pattern and included a Holbein in the background of his "Mary Neville, Lady Dacre". The influence of Holbein's "monumentality and attention to texture" has been detected in Eworths' work. According to art historian Erna Auerbach: "Holbein's influence on the style of