The Dance of Death: Exhibited in Elegant Engravings on Wood with a Dissertation on the Several Representations of that Subject but More Particularly on Those Ascribed to Macaber and Hans HolbeinDouce, Francis
History
The Dance of Death: Exhibited in Elegant Engravings on Wood with a Dissertation on the Several Representations of that Subject but More Particularly on Those Ascribed to Macaber and Hans Holbein
Douce, Francis
Bible. Old Testament -- Illustrations; Dance of death
Mr. Warton has converted the imaginary Machabree into _a French poet_, but
corrects himself in his "Hist. of Engl. Poetry." He supposes the single
cut in Lydgate to represent _all_ the figures that were in St. Paul's
cloister. He atones for these errors in referring to Holbein's cuts in
Cranmer's Catechism, as entirely different in style from those published
at Lyons, _but which he thinks, are probably the work of Albert Durer_,
and also in his conjecture that the painter Reperdius might have been
concerned in the latter. See "Observations on the Fairy Queen of Spenser,"
vol. ii. 116, &c. In his most elegant and instructive History of English
Poetry he relapses into error when he states that Holbein painted a Dance
of Death in the Augustine monastery at Basle in 1543, and that Georgius
Æmylius published this Dance at Lyons, 1542, one year before Holbein's
painting at Basle appeared. Hist. Engl. Poetry, vol. ii. p. 364, edit.
Price.
The Marquis de Paulmy ascribes the old Macaber Dance at Basle to Holbein,
and adds, "le sujet et l'execution en sont aussi singuliers que
ridicules." "Mélanges tirés d'une grande bibliothéque," tom. Ff. 371.
M. Champollion Figeac in Millin's "Magazin encyclopedique," 1811, tom. vi.
has an article on an edition of the "Danse Macabre anterieure à celle de
1486." In this article he states that Holbein painted a fresco Dance of
Death at Basle near the end of the 15th century (Holbein was not born till
1498!); that this Dance resembled the Danse Macabre, all the characters of
which are in Holbein's style; that it is still more like the Dance in the
Monasticon Anglicanum in a single print; and that the English Dance
belongs to John Porey, an author who appears, however, to be unknown to
all biographers. We should have been obliged to M. Figeac if he had
mentioned where he met with this John Porey, whom he again mentions, but
in such a manner as to leave a doubt whether he means to consider him as a
poet or a painter. Even M. Millin himself, from whom more accuracy might
have been expected, speaks of Holbein's work as at the Dominican convent
at Basle.
The "Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique," 1789, 8vo. gives the painting on
the walls of the cemetery of St. Peter at Basle, to Holbein, confounding
the two works as some other French biographical dictionaries have done,
especially one that has cited an edition of the Danse Macabre in 1486 as
the first of Holbein's painting, though it immediately afterwards states
that artist to have been born in 1498.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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