_Hans Holbein's connexion with the Dance of Death.--A dance of
peasants at Basle.--Lyons edition of the Dance of Death, 1538.--Doubts
as to any prior edition.--Dedication to the edition of 1538.--Mr.
Ottley's opinion of it examined.--Artists supposed to have been
connected with this work.--Holbein's name in none of the old
editions.--Reperdius._
The name of Holbein has been so strongly interwoven with the Dance of
Death that the latter is seldom mentioned without bringing to recollection
that extraordinary artist.
It would be a great waste of time and words to dwell specifically on the
numerous errors of such writers as Papillon, Fournier, and several others,
who have inadvertently connected Holbein with the Macaber Dance, or to
correct those of travellers who have spoken of the subject as it appeared
in any shape in the city of Basle. The opinions of those who have either
supposed or stated that Holbein even retouched or repaired the old
painting at Basle, are entitled to no credit whatever, unaccompanied as
they are by necessary proofs. The names of the artists who were employed
on that painting have been already adverted to, and are sufficiently
detailed in the volumes of Merian and Peignot; and it is therefore
unnecessary to repeat them.
Evidence, but of a very slight and unsatisfactory nature, has been adduced
that Holbein painted some kind of a Death's Dance on the walls of a house
at Basle. Whether this was only a copy of the old Macaber subject, or
some other of his own invention, cannot now be ascertained. Bishop Burnet,
in his letters from Switzerland,[91] states that "there is a _Dance_ which
he painted on the walls of a house where he used to drink; yet so worn out
that very little is now to be seen, except _shapes and postures_, but
these shew the exquisiteness of the hand." It is much to be regretted that
this painting was not in a state to have enabled the bishop to have been
more particular in his description. He then mentions the older Dance,
which he places "along the side of the convent of the Augustinians
(meaning the Dominicans), now the French church, so worn out some time ago
that they ordered the best painter they had to lay new colour on it, but
this is so ill done, that one had rather see the dark shadow of Holbein's
pencil than this coarse work." Here he speaks obscurely, and adopts the
error that Holbein had some hand in it.
Keysler, a man of considerable learning and ingenuity, and the author of a
very excellent book of travels, mentions the old painting at Basle, and
adds, that "Holbein had also drawn and painted a Death's Dance, and had
likewise painted, as it were, a _duplicate_ of this piece on another
house, but which time has entirely obliterated."[92] We are here again
left entirely in the dark as to the first mentioned painting, and its
difference from the other. Charles Patin, an earlier authority than the
two preceding travellers, and who was at Basle in 1671, informs us that
strangers behold, with a considerable degree of pleasure, the walls of a
house at the corner of a little street in the above town, which are
covered from top to bottom with paintings by Holbein, that would have done
honour to the commands of a great prince, whilst they are, in fact,
nothing more than the painter's reward to the master of a tavern for some
meals that he had obtained.[93] In the list of Holbein's works, in his
edition of Erasmus's Moriae encomion, he likewise mentions the painting on
a house in the Eisengassen, or Iron-street, near the Rhine bridge, and for
which he is said to have received forty florins,[94] perhaps the same as
that mentioned in his travels.
This painting was still remaining in the year 1730, when Mr. Breval saw
it, and described it as a _dance of boors_, but in his opinion unworthy,
as well as the Dance of Death in that city, of Holbein's hand.[95] These
accounts of the paintings on houses are very obscure and contradictory,
and the only way to reconcile them is by concluding that Holbein might
have decorated the walls of some houses with a Dance of Death, and of
others with a dance of peasants.[96] The latter subject would indeed be
very much to the taste of an inn-keeper, and the nature of his occupation.
Some of the writers on engraving have manifested their usual inaccuracy on
the subject of Holbein's Dance of Peasants. Joubert says it has been
engraved, but that it is "a peu pres introuvable."[97] Huber likewise
makes them extremely rare, and adds, without the slightest authority, that
Holbein engraved them.[98] There is, however, no doubt that his beautiful
pencil was employed on this subject in various ways, of which the
following specimens are worthy of being recorded. 1. In a set of initial
letters frequently used in books printed at Basle and elsewhere. 2. In an
edition of Plutarch's works, printed by Cratander at Basle, 1530, folio,
and afterwards introduced into Polydore Vergil's "Anglicae historiae libri
viginti sex," printed at Basle, 1540, in folio, where, on p. 3 at bottom,
the subject is very elegantly treated. It occurs also, in other books
printed in the same city. 3. In an edition of the "Nugae" of Nicolas
Borbonius, Basle, 1540, 12mo. at p. 17, there is a dance of peasants
replete with humour: and, 4. A vignette in the first page of an edition of
Apicius, printed at Basle, 1541, 4to. without the printer's name.
After all, there seems to be a fatality of ambiguity in the account of the
Basle paintings ascribed to Holbein; and that of the Dance of Death has
not only been placed by several writers on the walls, inside and outside,
of houses, but likewise in the fish-market; on the walls of the
church-yard of St. Peter; and even in the cathedral itself of Basle; and,
therefore, amidst this chaos of description, it is absolutely impossible
to arrive at any conclusion that can be deemed in any degree satisfactory.
We are now to enter upon the investigation of a work which has been
somewhat erroneously denominated a "Dance of Death," by most of the
writers who have mentioned it. Such a title, however, is not to be found
in any of its numerous editions. It is certainly not a dance, but rather,
with slight exception, a series of admirable groups of persons of various
characters, among whom Death is appropriately introduced as an emblem of
man's mortality. It is of equal celebrity with the Macaber Dance, but in
design and execution of considerable superiority, and with which the name
of Hans Holbein has been so intimately connected, and that great painter
so generally considered as its inventor, that even to doubt his claim to
it will seem quite heretical to those who may have founded their opinion
on internal evidence with respect to his style of composition.
In the year 1538 there appeared a work with the following title, "Les
simulachres et historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamment
pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginees." A Lyon Soubz lescu de
Coloigne, 4to. and at the end, "Excudebant Lugduni Melchior et Gaspar
Trechsel fratres, 1538." It has forty-one cuts, most exquisitely designed
and engraved on wood, in a manner which several modern artists only of
England and Germany have been competent to rival. As to the designs of
these truly elegant prints, no one who is at all skilled in the knowledge
of Holbein's style and manner of grouping his figures, would hesitate
immediately to ascribe them to that artist. Some persons have imagined
that they had actually discovered the portrait of Holbein in the subject
of the nun and her lover; but the painter, whoever he may have been, is
more likely to be represented in the last cut as one of the supporters of
the escutcheon of Death. In these designs, which are wholly different from
the dull and oftentimes disgusting Macaber Dance, which is confined, with
little exception, to two figures only, we have the most interesting
assemblage of characters, among whom the skeletonized Death, with all the
animation of a living person, forms the most important personage;
sometimes amusingly ludicrous, occasionally mischievous, but always busy
and characteristically occupied.
Doubts have arisen whether the above can be regarded as the first edition
of these justly celebrated engravings in the form of a volume accompanied
with text. In the "Notices sur les graveurs," Besancon, 1807, 8vo. a work
ascribed to M. Malpe,[99] it is stated to have been originally published
at Basle in 1530; and in M. Jansen's "Essai sur l'origine de la gravure,"
&c. Paris, 1808, 8vo. a work replete with plagiarisms, and the most
glaring mistakes, the same assertion is repeated. This writer adds, but
unsupported by any authority, that soon afterwards another edition
appeared with Flemish verses. Both these authors, following their blind
leader Papillon, have not ventured to state that they ever saw this
supposed edition of 1530, and it may indeed be asked, who has? Or in what
catalogue of any library is it recorded? Malpe acknowledges that the
earliest edition he had seen was that of 1538. M. Fuseli, in his edition
of Pilkington's Dictionary of Painters, has appended a note to the article
for Hans Holbein, where, alluding perhaps to the former edition of the
present dissertation, he remarks, that "Holbein's title to the Dance of
Death would not have been called in question, had the ingenious author of
the dissertation on that subject been acquainted with the German edition."
This gentleman seems, however, to have inadvertently forgotten a former
opinion which he had given in one of his lectures, where he says, "The
scrupulous precision, the high finish, and the Titianesque colour of Hans
Holbein would make the least part of his excellence, if his right to that
series of emblematic groups known under the name of Holbein's Dance of
Death had not, of late, been too successfully disputed." M. Fuseli would
have rendered some service to this question by favouring us with an
explicit account of the above German edition, if he really intended by it
a complete work; but it is most likely that he adverted to some separate
impressions of the cuts with printed inscriptions on them, but which are
only the titles of the respective characters or subjects. To such
impressions M. Malpe has certainly referred, adding that they have, at
top, passages from the Bible in German, and verses at bottom in the same
language. Jansen follows him as to the verses at bottom only. Now, on
forty-one of these separate impressions, in the collection of the accurate
and laborious author of the best work on the origin and early history of
engraving that has ever appeared, and on several others in the present
writer's possession, neither texts of scripture, nor verses at bottom, are
to be found, and nothing more than the above-mentioned German titles of
the characters. M. Huber, in his "Manuel des curieux et des amateurs de
l'art," vol. i. p. 155, after inaccurately stating that Holbein _engraved_
these cuts, proceeds to observe, that in order to form a proper judgment
of their merit, it is necessary to see the earliest impressions, printed
on one side only of the paper; and refers to twenty-one of them in the
cabinet of M. Otto, of Leipsig, but without stating any letter-press as
belonging to them, or regarding them as a part of any German edition of
the work.
In the public library of Basle there are proof impressions, on four
leaves, of all the cuts which had appeared in the edition of 1538, except
that of the astrologer. Over each is the name of the subject printed in
German, and without any verses or letter-press whatever at bottom.
It is here necessary to mention that the first known edition in which
these cuts were used, namely, that of 1538, was accompanied with French
verses, descriptive of the subjects. In an edition that soon afterwards
appeared, these French verses were translated into Latin by George
AEmylius, a _German_ divine; and in another edition, published at Basle, in
1554, the Latin verses were continued. In both these cases, had there been
any former _German verses_, would they not have been retained in
preference?
There is a passage, however, in Gesner's Pandectae, a supplemental volume
of great rarity to his well-known Bibliotheca, that slightly adverts to a
German edition of this work, and at the same time connects Holbein's name
with it. It is as follows: "Imagines mortis expressae ab optimo pictore
Johanne Holbein cum epigrammatibus Geo. AEmylii, excusae Francofurti et
Lugduni apud Frellonios, quorum editio plures habet picturas. Vidi etiam
cum metris Gallicis et _Germanicis si bene memini_."[100] But Gesner
writes from imperfect recollection only, and specifies no edition in
German. It is most probable that he refers to an early copy of the cuts on
a larger scale with a good deal of text in German, and printed and perhaps
engraved by Jobst Denecker, at Augsburg, 1544, small folio.
The forty-one separate impressions of the cuts in the collection of Mr.
Ottley, as well as those in the present writer's possession, are printed
on one side of the paper only, another argument that they were not
intended to be used in any book; and although they are extremely clear and
distinct, many of them that were afterwards used in the various editions
of the book are not less brilliant in appearance. It is well known to
those who are conversant with engravings on wood, that the earliest
impressions are not always the best; a great deal depending on the care
and skill with which they were taken from the blocks, and not a little on
the quality of the paper. As they were most likely engraved at Basle by an
excellent artist, of whom more will be said hereafter, and at the instance
of the Lyons booksellers or publishers, it is very probable that a few
impressions would be taken off with German titles only for the use of the
people of Basle, or other persons using the German language. Proofs might
also be wanted for the accommodation of amateurs or other curious persons,
and therefore it would be only necessary to print the names or titles of
the subjects. This conjecture derives additional support from the
well-known literary intercourse between the cities of Lyons and Basle, and
from their small distance from each other. On the whole, therefore, the
Lyons edition of 1538 may be safely regarded as the earliest, until some
other shall make its appearance with a well ascertained prior date, either
in German or any other language.
In the edition of 1538 there is a dedication, not in any of the others,
and of very considerable importance. It is a pious, quaint, and jingling
address to Jeanne de Touszele, Abbess of the convent of St. Peter, at
Lyons, in which the author, whose name is obscurely stated to be Ouzele,
compliments the good lady as the pattern of true religion, from her
intimate acquaintance with the nature of Death, rushing, as it were, into
his hands, by her entrance into the sepulchre of a cloister. He enlarges
on the various modes of representing the mortality of human nature, and
contends that the image of Death has nothing terrific in the eyes of the
Christian. He maintains that there is no better method of depicting
mortality than by a dead person, especially by those images which so
frequently occur on sepulchral monuments. Adverting then to the figures in
the present work he _regrets the death of him who has here conceived
[imagine] such elegant designs, greatly exceeding all other patterns of
the kind, in like manner as the paintings of Apelles and Zeuxis have
surpassed those of modern times_. He observes that these funereal
histories, accompanied by their grave descriptions in rhyme, induce the
admiring spectators to behold the dead as alive, and the living as dead;
which leads him to believe that Death, apprehensive lest this admirable
_painter_ should exhibit him so lively that he would no longer be feared
as Death, and that he should thereby become immortal himself, had hastened
his days to an end, and thus prevented him from completing many other
figures, which _he_ had already _designed_, especially that of the carman
crushed and wounded beneath his demolished waggon, the wheels and horses
of which are so frightfully overthrown that as much horror is excited in
beholding their downfall, as pleasure in contemplating the lickerishness
of one of the Deaths, who is clandestinely sucking with a reed the wine in
a bursting cask.[101] That in these imperfect subjects no one had dared to
put the finishing hand, on account of the boldness of their outline,
shadow, and perspective, _delineated_ in so graceful a manner, that by its
contemplation one might indulge either in a joyful sorrow, or a melancholy
pleasure. "Let antiquaries then," says he, "and lovers of ancient imagery
discover any thing comparable to these figures of Death, in which we
behold the Empress of all living souls from the creation, trampling over
Caesars, Emperors, and Kings, and with her scythe mowing down the
tyrannical heroes of the earth." He concludes with admonishing the Abbess
to take in good part this his sad but salutary present, and to persuade
her devout nuns not only to keep it in their cells and dormitories, but in
the cabinet of their memory, therein pursuing the counsel of St. Jerom,
&c.
The singularity of this curious and interesting dedication is deserving of
the utmost attention. It seems very strongly, if not decisively, to point
out the edition to which it is prefixed, as the first; and what is of
still more importance, to deprive Holbein of any claim to the _invention_
of the work. It most certainly uses such terms of art as can scarcely be
mistaken as conveying any other sense than that of _originality in
design_. There cannot be words of plainer import than those which describe
the painter, as he is expressly called, _delineating_ the subjects, and
leaving several of them unfinished: and whoever the artist might have
been, it clearly appears that he was not living in 1538. Now it is well
known that Holbein's death did not take place before the year 1554, during
the plague which ravaged London at that time. If then the expressions used
in this dedication signify any thing, it may surely be asked what becomes
of any claim on the part of Holbein to the designs of the work in
question, or does it not _at least_ remain in a situation of doubt and
difficulty?
It is, however, with no small hesitation that the author of the present
dissertation still ventures to dispute, and even to deny, the title of
Holbein to the invention of this Dance of Death, in opposition to his
excellent and valuable friend Mr. Ottley, whose opinion in matters of
taste, as well as on the styles of the different masters in the old
schools of painting and engraving may be justly pronounced to be almost
oracular. This gentleman has thus expressed himself: "It cannot be denied
that were there nothing to oppose to this passage, it would seem to
constitute very strong evidence that Holbein, who did not die until the
year 1554, was not the author of the designs in question; but I am firmly
persuaded that it refers in reality, not to the designer, but to the
artist who had been employed, under his direction, to engrave the designs
in wood, and whose name, there appears reason to believe, was Hans
Lutzenberger.[102] Holbein, I am of opinion, had, shortly before the year
1538, sold the forty-one blocks which had been some time previously
executed, to the booksellers of Lyons, and had at the same time given him
a promise of others which he had lately designed, as a continuation of the
series, and were then in the hands of the wood-engraver. The
wood-engraver, I suppose, died before he had completed his task, and the
correspondent of the bookseller, who had probably deferred his publication
in expectation of the new blocks, wrote from Basle to Lyons to inform his
friend of the disappointment occasioned by the artist's death. It is
probable that this information was not given very circumstantially, as to
the real cause of the delay, and that the person who wrote the dedication
of the book might have believed the designer and engraver to be one and
the same person: it is still more probable that he thought the distinction
of little consequence to his reader, and willingly omitted to go into
details which would have rendered his quaint moralizing in the above
passage less admissible. Besides, the additional cuts there spoken of
(eight cuts of the Dance of Death and four of boys) were afterwards
finished (doubtless by another wood-engraver, who had been brought up
under the eye of Holbein), and are not apparently inferior, whether in
respect of design or execution to the others. In short, these designs have
always been ascribed to Holbein, and designedly ranked amongst his finest
works."[103]
Mr. Ottley having admitted that the edition of the Dance of Death, printed
in quarto, at Lyons, 1538, is the earliest with which we are at present
acquainted, proceeds to state his belief that the cuts had been previously
and _certainly_ used at Basle. He then alludes to the supposed German
edition, about the year 1530, but acknowledges that he had not been able
to meet with or hear of any person who had seen it. He next introduces to
his reader's notice, and afterwards describes at large, a set of forty-one
impressions, being the complete series of the edition of 1538, except one,
and taken off 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. He thinks it possible that they may
originally have had German verses underneath, and texts of Scripture
above, in addition to the titles; a fact, he adds, not now to be
ascertained, as the margins are clipped on the sides and at bottom. He
says, it is greatly to be regretted that the blocks were never taken off
with due diligence and good printing ink, after they got into the hands of
the Lyons booksellers, and then introduces into his page two fac-similes
of these cuts so admirably copied as to be almost undistinguishable from
the originals.[104] One may, indeed, regret with Mr. Ottley the _general
carelessness_ of the old printers in their mode of taking off impressions
from blocks of wood when introducing them into their books, and which is
so very unequally practised that, as already observed, the impressions are
often clearer and more distinct in later than in preceding editions. The
works of the old designers and engravers would, in many cases, have been
much more highly appreciated, if they had had the same justice done to
them by the printers as the editorial taste and judgment of Mr. Ottley,
combined with the skill of the workmen, have obtained in the decoration of
his own book. With respect to the impressions of the cuts in question,
when the blocks were in the hands of the Lyons booksellers, the fact is,
that in some of their editions they are occasionally as fine as those
separately printed off; and at the moment of making this remark, an
edition, published in 1547, at Lyons, is before the writer, in which many
of the prints are uncommonly clear and even brilliant, a circumstance
owing, in a great degree, to the nature of the paper on which they are
impressed.
It were almost to be wished that this perplexing evidence against
Holbein's title to the invention of the work before us had never existed,
and that he had consequently been left in the quiet possession of what so
well accords with his exquisite pencil and extraordinary talents. True it
is, that the person to whom we owe this stubborn testimony, has manifested
a much more intimate acquaintance with the mode of conveying his pious
ejaculations to the Lady Abbess in the quaintest language that could
possibly have been chosen, than with the art of giving an accurate account
of the prints in question. Yet it seems scarcely possible that he should
have used the word _imagined_, which undoubtedly expresses originality of
invention, and not the mere act of copying, if he had referred to an
engraver on wood, whom he would not have dignified with the appellation of
a painter on whom he was bestowing the highest possible eulogium. There
would also have been much less occasion for the author's hyperbolical
fears on the part of Death in the case of an engraver, than in that of a
painter. He has stated that the rainbow subject, meaning probably that of
the Last Judgment, was left unfinished; but it appears among the
engravings in his edition. He must, therefore, have referred to a
painting, with which likewise the expression "bold shadows and
perspective," seem better to accord than with a slight engraving on wood.
He had also seen the subject of the waggon with the wine casks in its
unfinished state, and in this case we may almost with certainty pronounce
it to have been a painting, as the cut of it does not appear in the first
edition, furnishing, at the same time, an argument against Holbein's
claim; nor may it be unimportant to add that the dedicator, a religious
person, and probably a man of some eminence, was much more likely to have
been acquainted with the painter than with the engraver. The dedicator
also stamps the work as originating at Lyons; and Frellon, its printer, in
a complaint against a Venetian bookseller, who pirated his edition,
emphatically describes it as exclusively belonging to France.
Again, it is improbable that the dedicator, whoever he was, should have
preferred complimenting the engraver of the cuts, who, with all his
consummate skill, must, in point of rank and genius, be placed below the
painter or designer; and it is at the same time remarkable that the name
of Holbein is not adverted to in any of the early and genuine editions of
the work, published at Lyons, or any other place, whilst his designs for
the Bible have there been so pointedly noticed by his friend the poet
Borbonius.
It would be of some importance, if it could be shown, that the engraver
was dead in or before the year 1538, for that circumstance would
contribute to strengthen Mr. Ottley's opinion: but should it be found that
he did not die in or before 1538, it would follow, of course, that the
painter was the person adverted to in the dedication, and who consequently
could not be Holbein. It becomes necessary, therefore, to endeavour at
least to discover some other artist competent to the invention of the
beautiful designs in question; and whether the attempt be successful or
otherwise, it may, perhaps, be not altogether misplaced or unprofitable.
It must be recollected that Francis the First, on returning from his
captivity at Pavia, imported with him a great many Italian and other
artists, among whom were Lionardo da Vinci, Rosso, Primaticcio, &c. He is
also known to have visited Lyons, a royal city at that time eminent in art
of every kind, and especially in those of printing and engraving on wood;
as the many beautiful volumes published at that place, and embellished
with the most elegant decorations in the graphic art, will at this moment
sufficiently testify. In an edition of the "Nugae" of Nicolas Borbonius,
the friend of Holbein, printed at Lyons, 1538, 8vo. are the following
lines:
_De Hanso Ulbio, et Georgio Reperdio, pictoribus._
Videre qui vult Parrhasium cum Zeuxide,
Accersat a Britannia
Hansum Ulbium, et Georgium _Reperdium_.
_Lugduno_ ab urbe Galliae.
In these verses Reperdius is opposed to Holbein for the excellence of his
art, in like manner as Parrhasius had been considered as the rival of
Zeuxis.
After such an eulogium it is greatly to be regretted that notwithstanding
a very diligent enquiry has been made concerning an artist, who, by the
poet's comparative view of him, is placed on the same footing with
Holbein, and probably of the same school of painting, no particulars of
his life or works have been discovered. It is clear from Borbonius's lines
that he was then living at Lyons, and it is extremely probable that he
might have begun the work in question, and have died before he could
complete it, and that the Lyons publishers might afterwards have employed
Holbein to finish what was left undone, as well as to make designs for
additional subjects which appeared in the subsequent editions. Thus would
Holbein be so connected with the work as to obtain in future such notice
as would constitute him by general report the real inventor of it. If then
there be any validity in what is here stated concerning Reperdius, the
difficulty and obscurity in the preface to the Lyons edition of the Dance
of Death in 1538 will be removed, and Holbein remain in possession of a
share at least in the composition of that inestimable work. The mark or
monogram [monogram: HL] on one of the cuts cannot possibly belong to
Holbein, but may possibly be that of the engraver, of whom more
hereafter.