Note 89 — Chapter XVII · “THE TWO AMBASSADORS,” 1533

This picture, which is the subject of a very interesting article by Miss Mary F. S. Hervey and Mr. R. Martin-Holland in the Burlington Magazine for April 1911 (vol. xviii. No. xcvii. pp. 48-55), where it is reproduced, together with other works of its author, a forgotten French painter named Félix Chrétien, was described in the Beaujon catalogue as “The Court of Francis II and the principal nobles of that time, with the attributes of Moses and Aaron, who present themselves before the King of Egypt, who is Francis II himself; their names are written on the different contours of their robes,” &c. It further stated that it was “by the famous Holbein, towards 1552.” From the time of the Beaujon sale in 1787 all traces of this large panel painting—5 ft. 9 in. high by 6 ft. 2 in. wide—were lost, until it suddenly reappeared in Messrs. Christie’s saleroom on February 26, 1910, in company with the big group of Sir Thomas More and Family. In the catalogue it was given to Holbein, and was described as “Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh” (“a group of figures, said to represent King Henry VIII as Pharaoh,” &c.), and as formerly in the collection of the Prince de Cerny. The mystery of the picture’s meaning was cleared up, and the name of its painter discovered, by Miss Hervey and Mr. Martin-Holland, and will be found in their paper. It contains portraits of a number of the members of the Dinteville family, including the Bailly of Troyes, who appears as Moses, and his brother, François II, Bishop of Auxerre, as Aaron. The Pharaoh is evidently Francis I, though the likeness is by no means a good one. The names of most of the figures are given on the hems of their robes. The picture affords valuable additional proof of the identity of the personage on the spectator’s left in the “Ambassadors” with Jean de Dinteville, for the likeness is striking. The picture was painted in 1537, and remained in the possession of the Dinteville family, together with the greater work by Holbein, for exactly two hundred and fifty years. The identity of the picture with the one in the Beaujon sale was first pointed out by Mr. P. G. Konody (Burlington Magazine, vol. xix. No. xcviii., May 1911, p. 106). Félix Chrétien, the painter of it, was a chorister, and afterwards a canon of Auxerre, of which town he was probably a native. He was a protégé of the Bishop’s, and no doubt owed his training in art to him. Several of his pictures, considerably damaged, remain in the immediate district of Auxerre.