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 Walpole hung his neo-Gothic house at Strawberry Hill with copies of Holbeins and kept a Holbein room. From around 1780, a re-evaluation of Holbein set in, and he was enshrined among the canonical masters. A new cult of the sacral art masterpiece arose, endorsed by the German Romantics. This view suffered a setback during the famous controversy known as the ""Holbein-Streit"" (Holbein dispute) in the 1870s. It emerged that the revered Meyer "Madonna" at Dresden was a copy, and that the little-known version at Darmstadt was the Holbein original. Since then, scholars have gradually removed the attribution to Holbein from