In 1533 Henry III divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn. The Pope refused to annul his first marriage and recognize the second. In 1534, Henry broke from the Catholic church and made himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Francis I of France was not sure whether to side with the Pope or strengthen his alliance with England. He sent two of his most trusted men, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, to test the waters. Dinteville being a seasoned diplomat and de Selve a young Bishop.
This painting is filled with symbols. The items on the table represent the two main characters. The top represents the heavens and those on the bottom represent the affairs of the world. The most intriguing item is the skull at the bottom of the painting. Its inclusion is a memento mori, literally a reminder that we all must die. The skull is rendered in anamorphic perspective, a technic by which an object looks distorted when viewed from one angle, but normal from another. The first examples of this technique appear in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. This skull can only be discerned when viewed from upper right or lower left. For this reason, it is thought it was to be hung on a stairway. To see original: https://bit.ly/4aID6pU