Chapter VI (1)

FURTHER PROGRESS AND DECLINE OF WOOD ENGRAVING.

The Dance of Death -- Painted in Several Old Churches -- Two
Paintings of this Subject at Basle -- Old Editions of La Danse
Macabre, with Wood-Cuts -- Les Simulachres et Historiées Faces de la
Mort, Usually Called the Dance of Death, Printed at Lyons, 1538 --
Various Editions and Copies of this Work -- Icones Historiarum
Veteris Testamenti, or Bible Cuts, Designed by Hans Holbein --
Similarity Between these Cuts and those of the Lyons Dance of Death
-- Cuts of Both Works, Probably Designed by the Same Person --
Portrait of Sir T. Wyatt -- Cuts in Cranmer’s Catechism -- And in
Other Old English Works -- Wood-Engraving in Italy -- Chiaro-Scuro
-- Marcolini’s Sorti -- S. Munster’s Cosmography -- Maps -- Virgil
Solis -- Bernard Solomon -- Jost Ammon -- Andrea Andreani -- Henry
Goltzius -- English Wood-Cuts -- Cuts by Christopher Jegher from the
Designs of Rubens -- General Decline of the Art in the Seventeenth
Century.

The best of the wood-cuts of the time of Albert Durer, more especially those executed by German engravers, are for the most part of rather large size; the best of those, however, which appeared within forty years of his decease are generally small. The art of wood engraving, both as regards design and execution, appears to have attained its highest perfection within about ten years of the time of Durer’s decease; for the cuts which, in my opinion, display the greatest excellence of the art as practised in former times, were published in 1538. The cuts to which I allude are those of the celebrated Dance of Death, which were first published in that year at Lyons. So admirably are those cuts executed,--with so much feeling and with so perfect a knowledge of the capabilities of the art,--that I do not think any wood engraver of the present time is capable of surpassing them. The manner in which they are engraved is comparatively simple: there is no laboured and unnecessary cross-hatching where the same effect might be obtained by simpler means; no display of fine work merely to show the artist’s talent in cutting delicate lines. Every line is expressive; and the end is always obtained by the simplest means. In this the talent and feeling of the engraver are chiefly displayed. He wastes not his time in mere mechanical execution--which in the present day is often mistaken for excellence;--he endeavours to give to each character its appropriate expression; and in this he appears to have succeeded better, considering the small size of the cuts, than any other wood engraver, either of times past or present.

Though two or three of the cuts which will subsequently be given may be of rather earlier date than those of the Dance of Death, it seems preferable to give first some account of this celebrated work; and to introduce the cuts alluded to, though not in strict chronological order,--which is the less necessary as they do not illustrate the progress of the art,--with others executed in a similar style.

Long before the publication of the work now so generally known as “The Dance of Death,” a series of paintings representing, in a similar manner, Death seizing on persons of all ranks and ages, had appeared on the walls of several churches. A Dance of Death was painted in the cloisters of the Church of the Innocents at Paris, in the cloisters of St. Paul’s, London, and in the portico of St. Mary’s, Lubec. The painting in St Paul’s is said to have been executed at the cost of one Jenkin Carpenter, who lived in the reign of Henry VI, and who was one of the executors of that famous “lord-mayor of London,” Richard Whittington; and Dugdale, in his History of St. Paul’s Cathedral, says that it was in imitation of that in the cloisters of the Church of the Innocents at Paris.[VI-1] This subject seems to have been usually known in former times by the name of “The Dance of Machabre,” from a French or German poet--for this point is not settled by the learned--of the name of Macaber or Macabre, who is said to have written a poem on this subject.[VI-2] The Dance of Death, however, which as a painting has attained greater celebrity and given rise to much more discussion than any other, is that which was painted on the wall of a kind of court-house attached to the Church of the Dominicans at Basle. This painting has frequently been ascribed to Holbein; but it certainly was executed before he was born; and there is not the slightest reason to believe that he ever touched it in any of the repairs which it underwent in subsequent years.

[Footnote VI-1: Besides those above mentioned, there is said to
have been a “Death’s Dance” at the following places: in
Hungerford’s Chapel, Salisbury Cathedral; Hexham Church; at
Fescamp in Normandy, carved in stone; at Dresden; Leipsic;
Annaberg; and Berne in Switzerland. The last, painted on the walls
of the cloisters of the Dominican friars, was the work of Nicholas
Emanuel Deutsch, previously mentioned at page 314. So early as
1560 this painting was destroyed in consequence of the cloisters
being pulled down to widen a street. There are two copies of it in
water-colours preserved at Berne. From one of them a series of
lithographic engravings has been made. An ample list of old
paintings of this subject will be found in Mr. Douce’s Dance of
Death, chapters iii. and iv, published by Pickering, 1833, and
republished, with additions, by H. G. Bohn, 1858.]

[Footnote VI-2: Mr. Douce says, “Macaber was not a German or any
other poet, but a nonentity.” He supposes that the name _Macaber_
is only a slight and obvious corruption of _Macarius_, a Saint who
lived as a hermit in Egypt, and of whom there is a story of his
showing to three kings or noblemen an emblem of mortality in the
shape of three skeletons. “The word _Macabre_,” observes Mr.
Douce, “is found only in French authorities; and the Saint’s name,
which in the modern orthography is _Macaire_, would in many
ancient manuscripts be written _Macabre_ instead of _Macaure_, the
letter _b_ being substituted for that of _u_ from the caprice,
ignorance, or carelessness of transcribers.” Mr. Douce’s
conjecture would have been more feasible had he produced a single
instance from any ancient manuscript of the name having been
written _Macabre_ instead of _Macaure_ or _Macarius_. By a similar
process of reasoning, it would not be difficult to prove a hundred
old writers and poets non-entities. In the earliest French
editions, the work is intitled “La Danse Macabre;” and in a
Parisian edition, “Per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godefrido
de Marnef,” folio, 1490, the title is as follows: “Chorea ab
eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita, et à Petro Desrey
emendata.” This seems to prove that Peter Desrey knew something of
a person named Macaber who had written a description of the Dance
in German.]

The following particulars respecting this painting are such as seem best authenticated.

It is said to owe its origin to a plague which ravaged the city of Basle in 1439, during the time of the great council, which commenced in 1431, and did not terminate till 1448. A number of persons of almost all ranks, whom the council had brought to this city, having fallen victims to the plague, it is said that the painting was executed in remembrance of the event, and as a memento of the uncertainty of life. Though it may be true that the great mortality at Basle in 1439 might have been the occasion of such a picture in the church-court--_Kirchhofe_, as it is called by Hegner in his Life of Holbein--of the Dominicans in that city, it is almost certain that the subject must have been suggested by one of much earlier date painted on the walls of an old building which had formerly been the cloisters of a nunnery which stood in that part of Basle which is called the Little City. This convent was founded in 1275; and the painting appears to have been executed in 1312, according to the following date, which was to be seen above one of the figures, that of the Count, who was also one of the characters in the painting in the church-court of the Dominicans: “+Dussent jar treihuntert und Xii+;” in English: One thousand three hundred and twelve. Several of the figures in this old painting were almost the same as in that of the church-court of the Dominicans, though executed in a coarser manner; and, like the latter, were accompanied with explanatory inscriptions in verse. This curious old work appears to have remained unnoticed till 1766, when one Emanuel Büchel, of Basle, by trade a baker, but an admirer of art, and an industrious draughtsman, had his attention directed to it. He made a careful copy in colours of all that then remained of it, and his drawings are now in the public library of Basle. “This oldest Dance of Death,” says Hegner, writing in 1827, “is almost entirely effaced, and becomes daily more so, as well on account of age as from the cloisters of the old nunnery having been for many years used as a warehouse for salt.”[VI-3]

[Footnote VI-3: Hans Holbein der Jüngere. Von Ulrich Hegner,
S. 309. Berlin, 1827.]

It is supposed that the Dance of Death in the church-court of the Dominicans at Basle was originally painted in _fresco_ or distemper. The number of characters, each accompanied by a figure of Death, was originally forty;[VI-4] but in 1568, a painter, named Hans Hugo Klauber, who was employed by the magistrates to repair the old painting, introduced a figure of the reformer Oecolampadius as if preaching to the characters composing the Dance, with portraits of himself, his wife, and their little son, at the end. It is probable that he painted over the old figures in oil-colour, and introduced sundry alterations, suggested by other paintings and engravings of the same subject. It appears likely that, at the same time, many of the old inscriptions were changed for others more in accordance with the doctrines of the Reformation, which then prevailed at Basle. The verses above the figure of the Pope were certainly not such as would have been tolerated at the period when the subject is supposed to have been first painted.[VI-5] In 1616 the painting was again repaired; but, though a Latin inscription was then added containing the names of the magistrates who had thus taken care to preserve it, there is no mention made of any artist by whom the subject had been originally painted or subsequently retouched. Had there been any record of Holbein having been at any time employed on the work, such a circumstance would most likely have been noticed; as his memory was then held in the highest estimation, and Basle prided herself on having had so eminent an artist enrolled among the number of her citizens. In 1658 the painting was again renewed: and there seems reason to believe that further alterations were then introduced both in the costume and the colouring. It was retouched in 1703; but from that time, as the paint began to peel off from the decaying walls, all attempts for its further preservation appear to have been considered hopeless. It would indeed seem to have become in a great measure disregarded by the magistrates, for a rope-maker used to exercise his trade under the roof that protected it from the weather. As the old wall stood much in the way of new buildings, it is not unlikely that they might be rather wishful to have it removed. In 1805 the magistrates pronounced sentence against the Dance of Death, and the wall on which it was painted was by their orders pulled down, though not without considerable opposition on the part of many of the citizens, more especially those of the suburb of St. John, within which the old church-court of the Dominicans stood. Several pieces of the painting were collected, and are still preserved at Basle as memorials of the old “Todten-tanz,” which was formerly an object of curiosity with all strangers who visited the city, and which has been so frequently the subject of discussion in the history of art.

[Footnote VI-4: All the persons introduced were of the size of
life. Death, in only one instance, was represented as a perfect
skeleton, and that was in the subject of the Doctor, whom he was
supposed to address as follows:

+“Herr Doctor b’schaw die Anatomey
An mir, ob sie recht g’macht sey.”+

that is:

“Doctor, take of me a sight,
Say if the skeleton be right.”

It has been said that the Pope, the Emperor, and the King, were
intended respectively for portraits of Pope Felix V, the Emperor
Sigismund, and Albert II, his successor, as King of the Romans.
This, however, is merely a conjecture, and not a very probable
one. Sigismund died before the commencement of the plague which
is said to have been the occasion of the painting.]

[Footnote VI-5: Those verses, as they appeared in later times, are
as follows:

+“Heilig war ich auff Erd genant
Ohn Gott der höchst führt ich mein stand.
Der Ablass that mir gar wol lohnen
Doch will der tod mein nicht verschonen.”+

Their meaning may be thus expressed in English:

“His Holiness, on earth my name;
From God my power never came;
Although by pardons wealth I got,
Death, alas, will pardon not!”]

Mr. Douce has given a list of many books containing the figures of a Dance of Death printed before the celebrated Simulachres et Historiées Faces de la Mort of Lyons, 1538; and among the principal the following may be here enumerated.--A German edition, intitled “Der Dodtendanz mit figuren. Clage und Antwort schon von allen staten der Welt.” This work, which is small folio, is mentioned in Braun’s Notitia librorum in Bibliotheca ad SS. Udalricum et Afram Augustæ, vol. ii. p. 62. It is without date, but Braun supposes that it may have been printed between 1480 and 1500. It consists of twenty-two leaves, with wood-cuts of the Pope, Cardinal, Bishop, Abbot, &c. &c. accompanied by figures of Death. The descriptions are in German verse, and printed in double columns.--The earliest printed book on this subject with a date is intitled “La Danse Macabre imprimée par ung nommé Guy Marchand,” &c. Paris, 1485, small folio. In 1486 Guy Marchand,--or Guyot Marchant, as he is also called,--printed another edition, “La Danse Macabre nouvelle,” with several additional cuts; and in the same year he printed “La Danse Macabre des Femmes,” a small folio of fifteen leaves. This is the first edition of the Macaber Dance of females. Thirty-two subjects are described, but there are only cuts of two, the Queen and the Duchess. In 1490 an edition appeared with the following title: “Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemanicis edita, et à Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis, per magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem [Guy Marchand] pro Godefrido de Marnef.” In the same year Marchand printed another edition of “La nouvelle Danse Macabre des Hommes;” and in the year following there appeared from his press a second edition of “La Danse Macabre des Femmes,” with cuts of all the characters and other additions. A Dance of Death, according to Von der Hagen, in his Deutsche Poesie, p. 459, was printed at Leipsic in 1496; and in 1499 a “Grande Danse Macabre des Hommes et Femmes” was printed in folio at Lyons. The latter is supposed to be the earliest that contains cuts of both men and women. About 1500, Ant. Verard printed an edition, in folio, of the Danse Macabre at Paris; and in various years between 1500 and 1530 a work with the same title and similar cuts was printed at Paris, Troyes, Rouen, Lyons, and Geneva. Besides those works, characters from the Dance of Death were frequently introduced as incidental illustrations in books of devotion, more especially in those usually denominated Horæ or Hours of the Virgin, and printed in France.[VI-6]

[Footnote VI-6: Several characters are to be found in those Dances
of Death which do not occur in the Simulachres et Historiées Faces
de la Mort of Lyons, 1538. In the preface to the Emblems of
Mortality,--with wood-cuts by John Bewick, 1789,--written by John
Sidney Hawkins, Esq., the following list is given of the cuts in
an edition of “La grande Danse de Macabre des Hommes et Femmes,”
4to. printed at Troyes for John Garnier, but without a date. “The
Pope, Emperor, Cardinal, King, Legate, Duke, Patriarch, Constable,
Archbishop, Knight, Bishop, Squire, Abbot, Bailiff, Astrologer,
Burgess, Canon, Merchant, Schoolmaster, Man of Arms, Chartreux,
Serjeant, Monk, Usurer, Physician, Lover, Advocate, Minstrel,
Curate, Labourer, Proctor, Gaoler, Pilgrim, Shepherd, Cordelier,
Child, Clerk, Hermit, Adventurer, Fool. The women are the Queen,
Duchess, Regent’s Wife, Knight’s Wife, Abbess, Squire’s Wife,
Shepherdess, Cripple, Burgess’s Wife, Widow, Merchant’s Wife,
Bailiff’s Wife, Young Wife, Dainty Dame, Female Philosopher,
New-married Wife, Woman with Child, Old Maid, Female Cordelier,
Chambermaid, Intelligence-Woman, Hostess, Nurse, Prioress, Damsel,
Country Girl, Old Chambermaid, Huckstress, Strumpet, Nurse for
Lying-in-Woman, Young Girl, Religious, Sorceress, Bigot, Fool.”
Nearly the same characters occur in borders of the old Dutch
Prayer Book mentioned at page 318, though in the latter they are
yet more numerous; among the men there is a
fowler--_vogelaer_--and among the women, the beauty--_scone_--and
the old woman--_alde vrou_--which do not occur in the preceding
list.]

The celebrated “Dance of Death,” the cuts of which have been so generally ascribed to Hans Holbein as the engraver as well as designer, was first published at Lyons, in 1538. It is of small quarto size, and the title is as follows: “Les Simulachres & Historiées faces de la Mort, autant elegammēt pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées. A Lyon, Soubz l’escu de Coloigne. M.D.XXXVIII.” On the title-page is an emblematic wood-cut, very indifferently executed, representing three heads joined together, with a wreath above them; the middle one a full face, and those on each side in profile. Instead of shoulders, the heads, or busts, are provided with a pair of wings of peacock’s feathers; they rest on a kind of pedestal, on which is also an open book inscribed with the maxim, “ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ.” A large serpent is seen confined by the middle in a hole which must be supposed to pass through the pedestal; and to it (the pedestal) are chained two globes,--one surmounted by a small cross, like the emblem of imperial authority, and the other having two wings. This emblematic cut, which is certainly not “l’escu de Coloigne,” is accompanied with the motto “_Usus me Genuit_.”[VI-7] At the conclusion of the book is the imprint, within an ornamental wood-cut border: “EXCVDEBANT LVGDVNI MELCHIOR ET GASPAR TRECHSEL FRATRES. 1538.” The title is succeeded by a preface, of six pages, which is followed by seven pages more, descriptive of “diverses tables de Mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l’escripture saincte, colorées par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, et umbragées par Philosophes.” After those verbal sketches of Death come the cuts, one on each page; and they are succeeded by a series of descriptions of death and reflections on mortality, the general title to which, commencing at signature H, is, “Figures de la Mort moralement descriptes, & depeinctes selon l’authorité de l’scripture, & des sainctz Peres.”

[Footnote VI-7: It has been thought necessary to be thus
particular in describing the title-page of this rare edition, as
it is incorrectly described by Mr. Douce. In the copy in the
British Museum the title-page is wanting.]

By far the most important passage in the book, at least so far as relates to the designer or engraver of the cuts, occurs in the preface, which is written much in the style of a pedantic father-confessor to a nunnery who felt a pleasure in ornamenting his Christian discourses and exhortations with the flowers of Pagan eloquence. The preface is addressed, “A moult reverende Abbesse du religieux convent S. Pierre de Lyon, Madame Jehanne de Touszele, Salut dun vray Zele,”[VI-8] and the passage above mentioned is to the following effect. “But to return to our figured representations of Death, we have greatly to regret the death of him who has imagined such elegant figures as are herein contained, as much excelling all those heretofore printed,[VI-9] as the pictures of Apelles or of Zeuxis surpass those of modern times; for, his funereal histories, with their gravely versified descriptions, excite such admiration in beholders, that the figures of Death appear to them most life-like, while those of the living are the very pictures of mortality. It therefore seems to me that Death, fearing that this excellent painter would paint him in a manner so lively, that he should be no longer feared as Death, and apprehensive that the artist would thus become immortal, determined to shorten his days, and thus prevent him finishing other subjects which he had already drawn. Among these is one of a waggoner, knocked down and crushed under his broken waggon, the wheels and horses of which appear so frightfully shattered and maimed that it is as fearful to see their overthrow as it is amusing to behold the liquorishness of a figure of Death, who is perceived roguishly sucking the wine out of a broken cask, by means of a reed. To such imperfect subjects, as to the inimitable heavenly bow named Iris,[VI-10] no one has ventured to put the last hand, on account of the bold drawing, perspectives, and shadows contained in this inimitable chef-d’œuvre, there so gracefully delineated, that from it we may derive a pleasing sadness and a melancholy pleasure, as in a thing mournfully delightful.” The cut of the waggoner, described by the French euphuist, was, however, afterwards finished, and, with others, inserted in a subsequent edition of the work. It is figured in the present volume at page 344.

[Footnote VI-8: This “vray Zele” having said in the first page of
the preface that the name and surname of the revered abbess had
the same sound as his own, with the exception of the letter T, the
editor of the Emblems conjectures “that his name was JEAN, or, as
it was anciently written, JEHAN DE OUSZELL, or OZELL as it is now
usually spelt.”]

[Footnote VI-9: In the original, “avancantes autāt les patronées
jusques ici.” The word _patronées_, I conceive to refer to cuts
printed from wood-blocks. The editor of the Emblems, 1688, who is
followed by Mr. Ottley, translated the passage, “exceeding all the
_examples_ hitherto.” Works executed by means of a stencil were in
old French said to be _patronées_, and the word also appears to
have been applied to impressions printed from wood-blocks. The
verb _patroner_ is thus explained in Noel and Chapsal’s Nouveau
Dictionnaire de la Langue Française, Paris, 1828: “Terme de
cartier: enduire de couleur, au moyen du patron évidé, les
endroits où cette couleur doit paraître.”]

[Footnote VI-10: Mr. Douce supposes that the rainbow here alluded
to was that which appears in the cut of the Last Judgment, the
last but one in the first edition. The writer evidently means the
natural rainbow which is mostly seen imperfect.]

The number of cuts in the first edition, now under examination, is forty-one; above each is a text of Scripture, in Latin; and below are four verses in French--the “descriptions severement rithmées,” mentioned in the preface--containing some moral or reflection germane to the subject. A few sets of impressions of all those cuts, except one, appear to have been taken before the work appeared at Lyons. They have been printed by means of a press,--not taken by friction in the manner in which wood engravers usually take their proofs,--and at the top of each cut is the name in the German language, but in Italic type. “Why those German names,” says Hegner, “in a work which, so far as we know, was first published at Lyons? They appear to confirm the opinion of the cuts having been actually engraved at Basle; and the descriptions correspond with the dialect of that city.” The late Mr. Ottley had impressions of forty of those original cuts, and six of those which were inserted in a later edition. In his Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, Mr. Ottley, speaking of the Dance of Death, says: “It is certain that the cuts had been previously printed at Basle; and, indeed, some writers assert that the work was published in that city, with texts of Scripture, in the German language, above the cuts, and verses, in the same language, underneath, as early as 1530; although, hitherto, I have been unable to meet with or hear of any person who had seen a copy of such an edition.” In a note upon this passage, Jansen, the compiler of an Essay on the Origin of Engraving, and the anonymous author of a work entitled Notices sur les Graveurs, Besançon, 1807, are cited as mentioning such an edition. To give every one his due, however, and to show the original authority for the existence of such an edition, I beg here to give an extract from Papillon, who never felt any difficulty in supposing a date, and whose conjectures such writers as Jansen have felt as little hesitation in converting into certainties. The substance of Papillon’s observations on this point is as follows: “But to return to Holbein’s Dance of Death, which is unquestionably a master-piece of wood engraving. There are several editions; the first of which, _so far as may be judged_, ought to be about 1530, as has been already said,[VI-11] and was printed at Basle or Zurich, with a title to each cut, and, _I believe_, verses underneath, all in the German language.” What Papillon puts forth as a matter of conjecture and opinion, Von Murr, Jansen, and the author of the Notices sur les Graveurs, promulgate as facts, and Mr. Ottley refers to the two latter writers as if he were well inclined to give credit to their assertions.

[Footnote VI-11: Traité de la Gravure en Bois, tom. i. p. 168.
Papillon in a preceding page had observed: “These cuts must have
been engraved about 1530, for we find the four first among the
little figures of the Old Testament printed in 1539, from which it
is easy to perceive that many thousand impressions had already
been taken from the blocks.”--Those four cuts in the first edition
of the Dance of Death, have not the slightest appearance of having
been from blocks that had already furnished many thousand
impressions. In the copy now before me, I cannot perceive a break
or an imperfection in the most delicate lines. The first edition
of the “Historiarum Veteris Testamenti Icones,” to which Papillon
alludes, first appeared in the same year as the Simulachres, 1538,
and from the office of the same publishers, the brothers Melchior
and Gaspar Trechsel.]

From the following passage it would appear that Mr. Ottley had also been willing to believe that those impressions might have been accompanied with explanatory verses and texts of Scripture. “I have only to add, upon the subject of this celebrated work, that I am myself the fortunate possessor of forty pieces, (the complete series of the first edition, excepting one,) which are printed with the greatest clearness and brilliancy of effect, on one side of the paper only; each cut having over it its title, printed in the German language with moveable type. It is possible that they may originally have had verses underneath, and texts of Scripture above, in addition to the titles just mentioned: but as the margins are clipped on the sides and at bottom, it is now impossible to ascertain the fact.”[VI-12]

[Footnote VI-12: Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of
Engraving, vol. ii. p. 762.]

Had the forty impressions in question been accompanied with verses and texts of Scripture, they certainly might be considered as having belonged to an earlier edition of the work than that of 1538, and for the existence of which Mr. Ottley has referred to the testimony of Jansen and the editor of the Notices sur les Graveurs, printed at Besançon. There is, however, a set of those cuts preserved in the public library at Basle, which seems clearly to prove that they had only been taken as specimens without any further accompaniment than the titles. They are printed on four folio leaves, on only one side of the paper, and there are ten cuts on each page; the title, in the German language, and in Italic type, like Mr. Ottley’s, is printed above each; and the same cut--that of the astrologer--is also wanting. From these circumstances there can scarcely be a doubt that the set formerly belonging to Mr. Ottley[VI-13] had been printed in the same manner, and that each impression had subsequently been cut out, perhaps for the purpose of mounting them singly. The following are the titles given to those cuts, and to each is subjoined a literal translation. They are numbered as they follow each other in LES SIMULACHRES ET HISTORIEES FACES DE LA MORT, 1538, which perhaps may not be incorrectly expressed by the English title, “Pictorial and Historical Portraits of Death.”

[Footnote VI-13: Those cuts, with that of the astrologer and five
others, supplied from a later edition, were bought, at the sale of
Mr. Ottley’s prints, in 1837, for the British Museum, for £37
10_s._ In the catalogue, which, I understand, was chiefly drawn up
from his own memoranda, they are thus described, under the head
“HANS HOLBEIN,” No. 458: “THE CELEBRATED DANCE OF DEATH, first
impressions, printed (probably at Basle, about 1530,) upon one
side only, with German titles at the top in type; supposed to be
UNIQUE.” That they were printed in 1530 is highly _improbable_,
and they certainly are NOT _unique_.]

1. _Die schöpfung aller ding_--The creation of all things.
2. _Adam Eua im Paradyſs_--Adam and Eve in Paradise.
3. _Vertribung Ade Eue_--The driving out of Adam and Eve.
4. _Adam baugt die erden_--Adam cultivates the earth.
5. _Gebeyn aller menschen_--Skeletons of all men.
6. _Der Papst_--The Pope.
7. _Der Keyser_--The Emperor.
8. _Der Künig_--The King.
9. _Der Cardinal_--The Cardinal.
10. _Die Keyserinn._--The Empress.
11. _Die Küniginn_--The Queen.
12. _Der Bischoff_--The Bishop.
13. _Der Hertzog_--The Duke.
14. _Der Apt_--The Abbot.
15. _Die Aptissinn_--The Abbess.
16. _Der Edelman_--The Nobleman.
17. _Der Thümherr_--The Canon.
18. _Der Richter_--The Judge.
19. _Der Fürspräch_--The Advocate.
20. _Der Rahtsherr_--The Magistrate.
21. _Der Predicant_--The Preaching Friar.
22. _Der Pfarrherr_--The Parish-priest.
23. _Der Münch_--The Monk.
24. _Die Nunne_--The Nun.
25. _Dass Altweyb_--The Old Woman.
26. _Der Artzet_--The Doctor.
27. (Wanting in the specimens.) The Astrologer.
28. _Der Rychman_--The Rich Man.
29. _Der Kauffman_--The Merchant.
30. _Der Schiffman_--The Sailor.
31. _Der Ritter_--The Knight.
32. _Der Graff_--The Count.
33. _Der Alt man_--The Old Man.
34. _Die Greffinn_--The Countess.
35. _Die Edelfraw_--The Lady.
36. _Die Hertzoginn_--The Duchess.
37. _Der Krämer_--The Pedlar.
38. _Der Ackerman_--The Farmer.
39. _Das Jung Kint_--The Young Child.
40. _Das Jüngst Gericht_--The Last Judgment.
41. _Die Wapen des Thots_--Death’s coat-of-arms.

In 1542 a second edition of the Dance of Death, with the same cuts as the first, was published at Lyons, “Soubz l’escu de Coloigne,” by John and Francis Frellon, who appear to have succeeded to the business of the brothers Trechsel,--if, indeed, the latter were not merely the printers of the first edition. In a third edition, with the title Imagines Mortis, 1545, the verses underneath each cut are in Latin.[VI-14] A cut of a lame beggar, which has no relation to the Dance of Death, is introduced as a tail-piece to one of the discourses on death--Cypriani Sermo de Mortalitate--at the end of the volume; but it is neither designed nor executed in the same style as the others.

[Footnote VI-14: The French verses were translated into Latin by
George Æmylius, “an eminent German divine of Mansfelt,” says Mr.
Douce, “and the author of many pious works.”]

In a fourth edition, with the title “Imagines Mortis,”[VI-15] 1547, eleven additional cuts are introduced; namely: 1. Death fighting with a soldier in Swiss costume; 2. Gamblers, with a figure of Death, and another of the Devil; 3. Drunkards, with a figure of Death; 4. The Fool, with a figure of Death playing on the bagpipes; 5. The Robber seized by Death; 6. The Blind Man and Death; 7. The Waggoner and Death; 8. Children, one of whom is borne on the shoulders of the others as a conqueror triumphing; 9. A child with a shield and dart; 10. Three children; one riding on an arrow, another on a bow, as on a hobby-horse, the third carrying a hare over his shoulder, suspended from a hunting pole; 11. Children as Bacchanalians. The last four subjects have no relation to a Dance of Death, but have evidently been introduced merely to increase the number of the cuts; they are, however, beautifully designed and well engraved. This edition contains twelve more cuts, reckoning the tail-piece of the Lame Beggar, than the first. Another edition, forming the fifth, was also published in 1547 under the title of “Les Images de la Mort,” with French verses, as in the edition of 1538. The number of cuts is the same as in the edition of 1547 with Latin verses, and the title “Imagines Mortis,” or “Icones Mortis.”

[Footnote VI-15: Some copies have the title “Icones Mortis;” and
though they correspond in every other respect with those of the
same year, intitled Imagines Mortis, Mr. Douce seems to consider
that this trifling variation is a sufficient ground for describing
them as different editions.]

In 1549, a sixth edition, with the same number of cuts as the last, was published, under the title of “Simolachri, Historie, e Figure de la Morte,” with the letter-press in Italian, with the exception of the texts of Scripture, which were in Latin, as in the others. In the preface, John Frellon--whose name appears alone in the edition of 1547, and in those of subsequent years--complains of a piracy of the book, which was printed at Venice in 1545, with fac-similes of the cuts of the first edition. “Frellon, by way of revenge,” says Mr. Douce, “and to save the trouble of making a new translation of the articles that compose the volume, made use of that of his Italian competitor.”[VI-16] A seventh edition, with the title “Icones Mortis,” and containing fifty-three cuts, appeared, without any printer’s name, in 1554.

[Footnote VI-16: Dance of Death, p. 107, edit. 1833 (Bohn’s
edition, p. 95). It is stated in the Italian piracy that it was
printed “_Con gratia e privilegio de l’Illustriss. Senato
Vinitiano, per anni dieci. Appresso Vincenzo Vaugris, al Segno
d’Erasmo._ MDXLV.”]

In an eighth edition, 1562, with the title “Les Images de la Mort, auxquelles sont adjoustees dix-sept figures,” five additional cuts are introduced, thus making seventeen more than are contained in the first. The total number of cuts in the edition of 1562 is fifty-eight; and that of the Lame Beggar, which first appeared as a tail-piece in the edition of 1545, has now a place among the others in the body of the book. The subjects of the five new cuts are: 1. The Husband, with a figure of Death; 2. The Wife,--Death leading a young woman by the hand, preceded by a young man playing on a kind of guitar; 3. Children as part of a triumph, one of them as a warrior on horseback; 4. Three children; one with a trophy of armour, another carrying a vase and a shield, the third seated naked on the ground; 5. Children with musical instruments. The subjects of children are designed and executed in the same style as those first introduced in the edition of 1547. The last of those five new cuts does not appear in regular order with the other fifty-seven; but is given as a tail-piece at the end of a preface to a devotional tract--La Medicine de l’Ame--in the latter part of the book. Mr. Douce mentions another edition with the date 1574. He, however, observes in a note: “This edition is given on the authority of Peignot,[VI-17] page 62, but has not been seen by the author of this work. In the year 1547 there were three editions, and it is not improbable that, by the transposition of the two last figures, one of these might have been intended.” As one of Mr. Douce’s _three_ editions of 1547 differs only from another of the same date by having “_Icones_” instead of “_Imagines_” in the title-page, he might as consistently have claimed a fourth for the same year on the ground of a _probable_ transposition of 74 for 47. All the authentic editions of the “Dance of Death,” previously noticed, were published at Lyons. The first, as has been already observed, was in small quarto; the others are described by Mr. Douce as being in duodecimo. In a Dutch Dance of Death, intitled “De Doodt vermaskert met swerelts ydelheit,” duodecimo, Antwerp, 1654, fourteen of the cuts, according to Mr. Douce, were from the original blocks which had been used in the Lyons editions.

[Footnote VI-17: Author of the work intitled, “Recherches sur les
Danses des Morts.” Dijon et Paris, 1826.]

It seems probable that the earliest copies of the cuts in “Les Simulachres et Historiées Faces de la Mort,” or Dance of Death, as the work is more frequently called, appeared in a small folio, intitled “Todtentantz,” printed at Augsburg in 1544, by “_Jobst Denecker, Formschneyder_.” As I have never seen a copy of this edition, I take the liberty of extracting the following notice of it from Mr. Douce: “This edition is not only valuable from its extreme rarity, but for the very accurate and spirited manner in which the fine original cuts are copied. It contains all the subjects that were then published, but not arranged as those had been. It has the addition of one singular print, intitled, ‘Der Eebrecher,’ _i. e._ the Adulterer, representing a man discovering the adulterer in bed with his wife, and plunging his sword through both of them, Death guiding his hands. On the opposite page to each engraving there is a dialogue between Death and the party, and at bottom a Latin hexameter. The subject of the Pleader has the unknown mark [Symbol] and on that of the Duchess in bed, there is the date 1542.”[VI-18] Mr. Douce is of opinion that the “_Jobst Denecker, Formschneyder_,” who appears as the printer, was the same person as Jobst or Jost de Negker, the wood engraver whose name is at the back of one of the cuts of the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian.--The next copy of the work is that intitled “Simolachri, Historie, e Figure de la Morte,” Venice, 1545, the piracy complained of by Frellon in his Italian edition of 1549. It contains forty-one cuts, as in the first Lyons edition of 1538. There is no variation in the figures; but the expression of the faces is frequently lost, and the general execution of the whole is greatly inferior to that of the originals. Another edition, in Latin, was published in 1546; and Mr. Douce says that there are impressions of the cuts on single sheets, at the bottom of one of which is the date 1568.--In 1555, an edition with the title “Imagines Mortis,” with fifty-three cuts, similar to those in the Lyons edition of 1547, was published at Cologne by the heirs of Arnold Birkman, Cologne, 1555; and there are four other editions of the same work, respectively dated 1557, 1566, 1567, and 1572. Alterations are made in some of those cuts; in five of them the mark [[SA]] is introduced; and in the cut of the Duchess the mark [Symbol], seen on the bed-frame in the original, is omitted. All the alterations are for the worse; some of the figures seem like caricatures of the originals; and the cuts generally are, in point of execution, very inferior to those in the Lyons editions. The name of the artist to whom the mark [[SA]] belongs is unknown. In the preface to the Emblems of Mortality, page xx, the writer says it is “that of SILVIUS ANTONIANUS, an artist of considerable merit.” This, however, is merely one of the blunders of Papillon, who, according to Mr. Douce, has converted the owner of this mark into a cardinal. Papillon, it would seem, had observed it on the cuts of an edition of Faerno’s Fables--printed at Antwerp, 1567, and dedicated to Cardinal Borromeo by Silvio Antoniano, professor of Belles Lettres at Rome, afterwards a cardinal himself--and without hesitation he concluded that the editor was the engraver.[VI-19] The last of the editions published in the sixteenth century with wood-cuts copied from the Lyons work, appeared at Wittemberg in 1590.

[Footnote VI-18: Dance of Death, p. 118. Edit. 1833.]

[Footnote VI-19: Mr. Douce gives another amusing instance of
Papillon’s sagacity in assigning marks and names to their proper
owners. “He (Papillon) had seen an edition of the Emblems of
Sambucus with cuts, bearing the mark [[SA]], in which there is a
fine portrait of the author with his favourite dog, and under the
latter the word BOMBO, which Papillon gravely states to be the
name of the engraver; and finding the same word on another of the
emblems, which has also the dog, he concludes that all the cuts
which have not the [[SA]] were engraved by the same BOMBO.”--Dance
of Death, p. 114, 1833. Those blunders of Papillon are to be found
in his Traité Historique et Pratique de la Gravure en Bois, tom.
i. pp. 238 et 525.]

Various editions of the Dance of Death, with copper-plate engravings generally copied from the work published at Lyons, are enumerated by Mr. Douce, but only one of them seems to require notice here. Between 1647 and 1651 Hollar etched thirty subjects from the Dance of Death, introducing occasionally a few alterations. From a careful examination of those etchings, I am inclined to think that most of them were copied not from the cuts in any of the Lyons editions, but from those in the edition published by the heirs of Birkman at Cologne. The original copper-plates of Hollar’s thirty etchings having come into the possession of Mr. James Edwards, formerly a bookseller in Pall-Mall, he published an edition in duodecimo, without date, but about 1794,[VI-20] with preliminary observations on the Dance of Death, written by the late Mr. F. Douce. Those preliminary observations are the germ of Mr. Douce’s beautiful and more complete volume, published by W. Pickering in 1833 (and republished with additions by Mr. Bohn in 1858). As Petrarch’s amatory sonnets and poems have been called “a labour of Love,” with equal propriety may Mr. Douce’s last work be intitled “a labour of Death.” Scarcely a cut or an engraving that contains even a death’s head and cross-bones appears to have escaped his notice. Incorporated is a _Catalogue raisonné_ which contains an enumeration of all the tomb-stones in England and Wales that are ornamented with those standard “Emblems of Mortality,”--skull, thigh-bones in saltire, and hour-glass. In his last “Opus Magnum Mortis,” the notices of the several Dances of Death in various parts of Europe are very much enlarged, but he has not been able to adduce any further arguments or evidences beyond what appeared in his first essay, to show that the cuts in the original edition of the Dance of Death, published at Lyons, were not designed by Holbein. Throughout the work there are undeniable proofs of the diligence of the collector; but no evidences of a mind that could make them available to a useful end. He is at once sceptical and credulous; he denies that any poet of the name of Macaber ever lived; and yet he believes, on the sole authority of one T. Nieuhoff Picard, whose existence is as doubtful as Macaber’s, that Holbein painted a Dance of Death as large as life, in fresco, in the old palace at Whitehall.

[Footnote VI-20: Mr. Douce himself says, “about 1794.” A copy in
the British Museum, formerly belonging to the late Reverend C. M.
Cracherode, has, however, that gentleman’s usual mark, and the
date 1793.]

Having now given a list of all the authentic editions of the Dance of Death and of the principal copies of it, I shall next, before saying anything about the supposed designer or engraver, lay before the reader a few specimens of the original cuts. Mr. Douce observes, of the forty-nine cuts given in his Dance of Death, 1833, that “they may be very justly regarded as scarcely distinguishable from their fine originals.” Now, without any intention of depreciating these clever copies, I must pronounce them inferior to the originals, especially in the heads and hands. In this respect the wood-cuts of the first Lyons edition of the Dance of Death are unrivalled by any other productions of the art of wood engraving, either in past or present times. In the present day, when mere delicacy of cutting in the modern French taste is often mistaken for good engraving, there are doubtless many admirers of the art who fancy that there would be no difficulty in finding a wood engraver who might be fully competent to accurately copy the originals in the first edition of the Dance of Death. The experiment, however, would probably convince the undertaker of such a task, whoever he might be, that he had in this instance over-rated his abilities. Let the heads in the Lyons cuts, and those of any copies of them, old or recent, be examined with a magnifying glass, and the excellence of the former will appear still more decidedly than when viewed with the naked eye.

The following cut is a copy of the same size as the original, which is the second of the Dance of Death, of the edition of 1538. The subject is Adam and Eve eating of the forbidden fruit; and in the series of early impressions, formerly Mr. Ottley’s, but now in the Print Room of the British Museum, it is intitled “_Adam Eva im Paradyss_”--Adam and Eve in Paradise. The serpent, as in many other old engravings, as well as in paintings, is represented with a human face. In order to convey an idea of the original page, this cut is accompanied with its explanatory text and verses printed in similar type.

_GENESIS III_

[Figure]

_ADAM_ fut par _EVE_ deceu
Et contre _DIEV_ mangea la pomm
Dont tous deux out la Mort receu,
Et depuis fut mortel tout homme.
C]

In the two first cuts, which represent the Creation of Eve, and Adam taking the forbidden fruit, the figure of Death is not seen. In the third, Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise, Death, playing on a kind of lyre, is seen preceding them; and in the fourth, Adam cultivating the earth, Death is perceived assisting him in his labour. In the fifth, intitled _Gebeyn aller menschen_--Skeletons of all men--in the early impressions of the cuts, formerly belonging to Mr. Ottley, but now in the British Museum, all the figures are skeletons; one of them is seen beating a pair of kettle drums, while others are sounding trumpets, as if rejoicing in the power which had been given to Death in consequence of the fall of man. The texts above this cut are, “Væ væ væ habitantibus in terra. APOCALYPSIS VIII;” and “Cuncta in quibus spiraculum vitæ est, mortua sunt. GENESIS VII.” In the sixth cut there are two figures of Death,--one grinning at the pope as he bestows the crown on a kneeling emperor, and the other, wearing a cardinal’s hat, as a witness of the ceremony. In the thirty-sixth cut, the Duchess, there are two figures of Death introduced, and there are also two in the thirty-seventh, the Pedlar; but in all the others of this edition, from the seventh to the thirty-ninth, inclusive, there is only a single figure of Death, and in every instance his action and expression are highly comic, most distinctly evincing that man’s destruction is his sport. In the fortieth cut there is no figure of Death; the Deity seated on a rainbow, with his feet resting on the globe, is seen pronouncing final judgment on the human race. The forty-first, and last cut of the original edition, represents Death’s coat-of-arms----_Die wapen des Thots_. On an escutcheon, which is rent in several places, is a death’s-head, with something like a large worm proceeding from the mouth; above the escutcheon, a barred helmet, seen in front like that of a sovereign prince, is probably intended to represent the power of Death; the crest is a pair of fleshless arms holding something like a large stone immediately above an hour-glass; on the dexter side of the escutcheon stands a gentleman, who seems to be calling the attention of the spectator to this memento of Death, and on the opposite side is a lady; in the distance are Alpine mountains, the top of the highest partly shaded by a cloud. The appropriate text is, “Memorare novissima, et in æternum non peccabis. ECCLE. VII;” and the following are the verses underneath:

“Si tu veulx vivre sans peché
Voy ceste imaige a tous propos,
Et point ne seras empesché
Quand tu t’en iras en repos.”

The total number of cuts of the first edition in which Death is seen attending on men and women of all ranks and conditions, mocking them, seizing them, slaying them, or merrily leading them to their end, is thirty-seven.

_IOB XVII_

[Figure]

Mes eſperitz ſont attendriz,
Et ma uie ſ’en ua tout beau.
Las mes longz iours ſont amoindriz
Plus ne me reſte qu’un tombeau.]

The above cut is a copy of the thirty-third, the Old Man--_Der Alt man_--whom Death leads in confiding imbecility to the grave, while he pretends to support him and to amuse him with the music of a dulcimer. The text and verses are given as they stand in the original.

The following cut is a copy of the thirty-sixth, the Duchess--_Die Hertzoginn_. In this cut, as has been previously observed, there are two figures of Death; one rouses her from the bed--where she appears to have been indulging in an afternoon nap--by pulling off the coverlet, while the other treats her to a tune on the violin. On the frame of the bed, or couch, to the left, near the bottom of the cut, is seen the mark [[HL]], which has not a little increased the difficulty of arriving at any clear and unquestionable conclusion with respect to the designer or engraver of those cuts. The text and the verses are given literally, as in the two preceding specimens.

_III REG. I_

[Figure]

Du lict ſus lequel as monté
Ne deſcendras a ton plaiſir.
Car Mort t’aura tantoſt dompté,
Et en brief te uiendra ſaiſir.]

The following cut, the Child--_Das Iung Kint_--is a copy of the thirty-ninth, and the last but two in the original edition. Death having been represented in the preceding cuts as beguiling men and women in court and council-chamber, in bed-room and hall, in street and field, by sea and by land, is here represented as visiting the dilapidated cottage of the poor, and, while the mother is engaged in cooking, seizing her youngest child.

_IOB XIIII_

[Figure]

Tout homme de la femme yſſant
Remply de miſere, & d’encombre,
Ainſi que fleur toſt finiſſant,
Sort & puis fuyt comme faict l’umbre.]

The cut of the Waggon overturned, from which the following is copied, first appeared with ten others in the edition of 1547. From an inspection of this cut, which most probably is that mentioned as being left unfinished, in the prefatory address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele in the first edition, 1538, it will be perceived that the description which is there given of it is not correct, and hence arises a doubt if the writer had actually seen it. He describes the driver as knocked down, and lying bruised under his broken waggon, and he says that the figure of Death is perceived roguishly sucking the wine out of a broken cask by means of a reed.[VI-21] In the cut itself, however, the waggoner is seen standing, wringing his hands as if in despair on account of the accident, and a figure of Death,--for there are two in this cut,--instead of sucking the wine, appears to be engaged in undoing the rope or chain by which the cask is secured to the waggon. A second figure of Death is perceived carrying off one of the waggon-wheels. In this cut the subject is not so well treated as in most of those in the edition of 1538; and it is also not so well engraved.--The text and verses annexed are from the edition of 1562.

[Footnote VI-21: Mr. Douce, when correcting the mistake of the
writer of the address, commits an error himself. He says that
“Death is in the act of untwisting the _fastening to one of the
hoops_.” Now, it is very evident that he is undoing the rope or
chain that steadies the cask and confines it to the waggon. He has
hold of the stake or piece of wood, which serves as a +twitch+ to
tighten the rope or chain, in the manner in which large timber is
secured to the waggon in the present day.]

I. _ROIS_ IX.

[Figure]

Au passage de MORT perverse
Raison, Chartier tout esperdu,
Du corps le char, & chevaux verse,
Le vin (sang de vie) esperdu.]