Detail from The Dance of Death, a terrifying work by Holbein in which 34 souls meet their end. Photograph: Picture Art Collection/Alamy
He was a star of the Renaissance, an unflinching painter of death and horror in a time of rampant plague. Yet he ended up in an unmarked grave in London. Or so it has always been believed …
Death is ever at one’s shoulder … The Ambassadors, with the stretched skull along the bottom, 1533. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo