“The scene is a chamber paved with inlaid marbles, and hung with green damask, which in the upper left-hand corner partly reveals a silver crucifix attached to the wall behind. In the centre of the composition is a wooden stand, having an upper and a lower shelf. To the left of this, leaning his arm upon it, stands Jean de Dinteville, a young man with dark-brown eyes and beard, in a rich costume of the period of Henry VIII, wearing a heavy gold chain with the badge of the French order of Saint-Michel, and, on his right side, depending from his girdle, a dagger with wrought gold hilt and sheath: on the sheath the inscription—ÆT. SVÆ 29. in relief. In his black bonnet is a jewel formed of a silver skull set in gold. To the right, George de Selve, dark-eyed, with a close beard, also leans upon the stand, or, more immediately, on a clasped book, the edges of which are inscribed: ÆTATIS SVÆ 25. He wears a four-cornered black cap, and a loose, long-sleeved gown of mulberry and black brocade, lined with sable, and reaching to the ground. Both these persons regard the spectator. The upper shelf of the stand is covered with a Turkish rug, on which are several mathematical and astronomical instruments, and, close to the principal personage, a celestial globe. The lower shelf bears a case of flutes, a lute, an open music-book containing part of the score and words of the Lutheran hymn, ‘Komm, heiliger Geist,’ a smaller book, on arithmetic, kept partly open by a small square, a pair of compasses, and a terrestrial hand-globe, which is in a direct line below the other globe. Under the stand lies the lute-case. Conspicuous in the foreground is the _anamorphosis_, or perspectively distorted image, of a human skull, which, touching the floor on the left, stretches obliquely upwards towards the right. In the shadow cast on the floor by the chief personage is the inscription—‘JOANNES HOLBEIN PINGEBAT 1533’ in sloping Roman letters.” To this it should be added that Dinteville’s dress consists of a slashed doublet of rose-coloured satin, and a black surcoat. The latter is lined with ermine, with which the shoulder-puffs, further adorned with gold tags, are piped. A large gold and green silk tassel, of very fine execution, hangs, with the dagger, from his girdle, and he also wears a sword, only the hilt and sheathed point of which are seen. [Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE PICTURE]