a skull hidden in painting

[zak]

in a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in (1533):
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/4192/598pxholbeinambassadors.jpg


the causual viewer will not recognise the object in the bottom as a skull, but go on inside the painting (to talk to the ambassadors) and look directly to the object; it is a skull

http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/2895/skullambassadors.jpg

ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein)

PS: amazing 3D modelling of the painting here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pj0a3PozDo&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[LanceGary]

Yes it is extremely foreshortened as a means of disguising it. But skulls and other symbols of death were found in a great many paintings, illustrations (prints) and even writings of the time. I think it had something to do with the shortness and uncertainty of life at the time. Phillipe Aries in his History of Childhood says that new born children were often not given names for teh first two years because there was such a high chance that they would not survive...

Lance