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
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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
London. William Charlton Wright." 12mo. With a frontispiece, partly copied
from that in the preceding article, a common-place life of Holbein, and an
introduction pillaged verbatim from an edition with Hollar's cuts,
published by Mr. Edwards. The cuts, with two or three exceptions, are
imitated from the originals, but all the human figures are ridiculously
modernised. The text to the subjects is partly descriptions in prose, and
partly Mr. Hawkins's verses, and the cuts, if Bewick's, very inferior to
those in his other works.
XII. "Emblems of Mortality, representing Death seizing all ranks and
degrees of people. Imitated in a series of wood cuts from a painting in
the cemetery of the Dominican church at Basil in Switzerland, with
appropriate texts of scripture, and a poetical apostrophe to each, freely
translated from the Latin and French. London. Printed for Whittingham and
Arliss, juvenile library, Paternoster-row." 12mo. The frontispiece and the
rest of the cuts, with two exceptions, from the same blocks as those used
for the last-mentioned edition. The preface, with very slight variation,
is abridged from that by Mr. Hawkins in No. VIII. and the descriptive
verses altogether the same as those in that edition. Both the last
articles seem intended for popular and juvenile use. It will be
immediately perceived that the title page is erroneous in confounding the
Basle Dance of Death with that in the volume itself.
XIII. The last in this list is "Hans Holbein's Todtentanz in 53 getreu
nach den holtz schnitten lithographirten Blattern. Herausgegeben von J.
Schlotthauer, K. Professor. Mit erklärendem Texte. Munschen, 1832. Auf
kosten des Herausgebers," 12mo. or, "Hans Holbein's Dance of Death in
fifty-three lithographic leaves, faithfully taken from wood engravings.
Published by J. Schlotthauer, royal professor, with explanatory text.
Munich, 1832. At the cost of the editors." This work is executed in so
beautiful and accurate a manner that it might easily be mistaken for the
wood originals.
The professor has substituted German verses, communicated by a friend,
instead of the former Latin ones. He states that the subject will be taken
up by Professor Massman, of Munich, whose work will satisfy all enquiries
relating to it. Massman, however, has added to this volume a sort of
explanatory appendix, in which some of the editions are mentioned. He
thinks it possible that the cholera may excite the same attention to this
work as the plague had formerly excited to the old Macaber Dance at Basle,
and concludes with a promise to treat the subject more at large at some
future time.
COPIES OF THE SAME DESIGNS, ENGRAVED IN COPPER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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