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
The numerous mistakes that have been made by those writers who have
mentioned the Basle painting have been already adverted to by M. Peignot,
and are not, in this place, worthy of repetition.[65] That which requires
most particular notice, and has been so frequently repeated, is the making
Hans Holbein the painter of it, who was not born till a considerable time
after its execution, and even for whose supposed retouching of a work,
almost beneath his notice in point of art, there is not the slightest
authority.
In the small organ chapel, or, according to some, in the porch, of the
church of St. Mary at Lubeck in Lower Alsace, there is, or was, a very
ancient Dance of Death, said to have been painted in 1463. Dr. Nugent, who
has given some account of it, says, that it is much talked of in all parts
of Germany; that the figures were repaired at different times, as in 1588,
1642, and last of all in 1701. The verses that originally accompanied it
were in low Dutch, but at the last repair it was thought proper to change
them for German verses which were written by Nathaniel Schlott of
Dantzick. The Doctor has given an English translation of them, made for
him by a young lady of Lubeck.[66] This painting has been engraved, and
will be again mentioned. Leipsic had also a Dance of Death, but no
particulars of it seem to have been recorded.
In 1525 a similar dance was painted at Anneberg in Saxony, which Fabricius
seems alone to have noticed. He also mentions another in 1534, at the
palace of Duke George at Dresden.[67] This is described in a German work
written on the subject generally, by Paul Christian Hilscher, and
published at Dresden, 1705, 8vo. and again at Bautzen, 1721, 8vo. It
consisted of a long frieze sculptured in stone on the front of the
building, containing twenty-seven figures. A view of this very curious
structure, with the Dance itself, and also on a separate print, on a
larger scale, varying considerably from the usual mode of representing the
Macaber Dance, is given in Anthony Wecken's Chronicle of Dresden, printed
in German at Dresden 1680, folio. It is said to have been removed in 1721
to the church-yard of Old Dresden.
Nicolai Karamsin has given a very brief, but ludicrous, account of a Dance
of Death in the cross aisle of the Orphan House at Erfurth;[68] but
Peignot places it in the convent of the Augustins, and seems to say that
it was painted on the panels between the windows of the cell inhabited by
Luther.[69] In all probability the same place is intended by both these
writers.
There is some reason to suppose that there was a Dance of Death at
Nuremberg. Misson, describing a wedding in that city, states that the
bridegroom and his company sat down on one side of the church and the
bride on the other. Over each of their heads was a figure of Death upon
the wall. This would seem very like a Dance of Death, if the circumstance
of the figure being on both sides of the church did not excite a doubt on
the subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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