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.
[Illustration:
Quia audiſti vocem vxoris tuæ, & comediſti
de ligno ex quo preceperam tibi ne comederes &c.
_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.”
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration:
Spiritus meus attenuabitur, dies mihi bre-
viabuntur, & ſolum mihi ſupereſt ſepul-
chrum.
_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.
[Illustration:
De lectulo ſuper quem aſcendi-
ſti non deſcendes, ſed morte
morieris.
_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.
[Illustration:
Homo natus de muliere, brevi vivens tempore
repletur multis miſeriis, qui quaſi flos egre-
ditur, & conteritur, & fugit velut umbra.
_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.]
[Illustration:
Il cheut en son chariot.
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.]
Of the eleven additional cuts inserted in the edition of 1547, there are
four of children, which, as has already been observed in page 334, have
not the slightest connexion with the Dance of Death. The following is a
copy of one of them. The editor seems to have found no difficulty in
providing the subject with a text; and it serves as a peg to hang a
quatrain on as well as the others which contain personifications of
Death.
[Illustration:
Il sera percé de sagettes.
_EXOD. XIX._
[Figure]
L’eage du sens, du sang l’ardeur
Est legier dard, & foible escu
Contre MORT, qui un tel dardeur
De son propre dard rend vaincu.]
In the edition of 1562 five more cuts are inserted; but two of them
only--the Bridegroom and the Bride--have relation to the Dance of Death;
the other three are of a similar character to the four cuts of children
first inserted in the edition of 1547. All the seven cuts of children
have been evidently designed by the same person. They are well engraved,
but not in so masterly a style as the forty-one cuts of the original
edition. The following is a copy of one of the three which were inserted
in the edition of 1562.
[Illustration:
Il partira les despoilles avec les puissans.
_ISAIE LIII._
[Figure]
Pour les victoires triumphées
Sur les plus forts des humains cœurs,
Les despoilles dresse en trophées
La MORT vaincresse des vainqueurs.]
Having now given what, perhaps, may be considered a sufficiently ample
account of the Lyons Dance of Death, it next appears necessary to make
some enquiries respecting the designer of the cuts. Until the
publication of Mr. Douce’s observations, prefixed to the edition of
Hollar’s etchings from those cuts, by Edwards, about 1794, scarcely any
writer who mentions them seems to entertain a doubt of their having been
designed by Holbein; and Papillon, in his usual manner, claims him as a
wood engraver, and unhesitatingly declares that not only the cuts of the
Lyons Dance of Death, but all the other cuts which are generally
supposed to have been of his designing, were engraved by himself. Mr.
Douce’s arguments are almost entirely negative,--for he produces no
satisfactory evidence to show that those cuts were certainly designed by
some other artist,--and they are chiefly founded on the passage in the
first Lyons edition, where the writer speaks of the death of the person
“qui nous en a icy imaginé si elegantes figures.”
The sum of Mr. Douce’s objections to Holbein being the designer of the
cuts in question is as follows. “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 of 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 anything, 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?”[VI-22] With respect to the true import of the passage
referred to, my opinion is almost directly the reverse of that expressed
by Mr. Douce.
[Footnote VI-22: Dance of Death, p. 88. Edit. 1833 (Bohn’s edit.
1858, p. 77.)]
What the writer of the address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele, in the
Lyons edition of 1538, says respecting the unfinished cuts, taken all
together, seems to relate more properly to the engraver than the
designer; more especially when we find that a cut--that of the
Waggoner,--expressly noticed by him as being then unfinished, was given
with others of a similar character in a subsequent edition.
From the incorrect manner in which the cut of the Waggoner is described,
I am very much inclined to think that the writer had neither seen the
original nor the other subjects already traced--the “_plusieurs aultres
figures jà par luy trassées_”--of whose “bold drawing, perspectives, and
shadows,” he speaks in such terms of admiration. If the writer knew
little of the process of wood engraving, he would be very likely to
commit the mistake of supposing that the engraver was also the designer
of the cuts. Though I consider it by no means unlikely that the engraver
might have been dead before the publication of the first edition, yet I
am very much inclined to believe that the passage in which the cuts are
mentioned is purposely involved in obscurity: the writer, while he
speaks of the deceased artist in terms of the highest commendation, at
the same time carefully conceals his name. If the account in the preface
be admitted as correct, it would appear that the cuts were both designed
and engraved by the same person, and that those already drawn on the
block[VI-23] remained unfinished in consequence of his decease; for if
he were _not_ the engraver, what prevented the execution of the other
subjects already traced, and of which the bold drawing, perspective, and
shadows, all so gracefully delineated, are distinctly mentioned? The
engraver, whoever he might be, was certainly not only the best of his
age, but continues unsurpassed to the present day, and I am satisfied
that such precision of line as is seen in the heads could only be
acquired by great practice. The designs are so excellent in drawing and
composition, and so admirably are the different characters
represented,--with such spirit, humour, and appropriate
expression,--that to have produced them would confer additional honour
on even the greatest painters of that or any other period. Are we then
to suppose that those excellencies of design and of engraving were
combined in an obscure individual whose name is not to be found in the
roll of fame, who lived comparatively unknown, and whose death is only
incidentally noticed in an ambiguous preface written by a nameless
pedant, and professedly addressed to an abbess whose very existence is
questionable?[VI-24] Such a supposition I conceive to be in the highest
degree improbable; and, on the contrary, I am perfectly satisfied that
the cuts in question were _not_ designed and engraved by the same
person. Furthermore, admitting the address to Madame Jehanne de Touszele
to be written in good faith, I am firmly of opinion that the person
whose death is there mentioned, was the engraver, and not the designer
of the cuts of the first edition.
[Footnote VI-23: The words “_jà par luy trassées_” will apply more
properly to drawings already made on the block, but unengraved,
than to unfinished drawings on paper. It is indeed almost certain
that the writer meant the former, for their “_audacieux traicts,
perspectives, et umbrages_” are mentioned; they were moreover
“_gracieusement deliniées_.” These expressions will apply
correctly to a finished, though unengraved design on the block,
but scarcely to an unfinished drawing on paper.]
[Footnote VI-24: I am very much inclined to think that Madame
Jehanne de Touszele is a fictitious character. I have had no
opportunities of learning if such a person were really abbess of
the Convent of St. Peter at Lyons in 1538, and must therefore
leave this point to be decided by some other enquirer.]
The mark [[HL]] in the cut of the Duchess, is certainly not Holbein’s;
and Mr. Douce says, “that it was intended to express the name of the
designer, cannot be supported by evidence of any kind.” That it is not
the mark of the designer, I agree with Mr. Douce, but my conclusion is
drawn from premises directly the reverse of his; for had I not found
evidence elsewhere to convince me that this mark can only be that of the
engraver, I should most certainly have concluded that it was intended
for the mark of the designer. In direct opposition to what Mr. Douce
here says, up to the time of the publication of the Lyons Dance of
Death, the mark on wood-cuts is most frequently that of the designer,
and whenever that of the engraver appears, it is as an exception to the
general custom. It is, in fact, upon the evidence of the mark alone that
the greater part of the wood-cut designs of Durer, Cranach, Burgmair,
Behaim, Baldung, Grün, and other old masters, are respectively ascribed
to them. The cuts of the Triumphal Procession of Maximilian with Hans
Burgmair’s mark in front, and the names of the engravers written at the
back of the blocks, may serve as an illustration of the general
practice, which is directly the reverse of Mr. Douce’s opinion. If the
weight of probability be not on the opposite side, the mark in question
ought certainly, according to the usual practice of the period, to be
considered as that of the designer.
In a subsequent page of the same chapter, Mr. Douce most inconsistently
says, “There is an unfortunate ambiguity connected with the marks that
are found on ancient engravings on wood, and it has been a _very great
error_ on the part of all the writers who treat on such engravings, in
referring the marks that accompany them to the block-cutters, or as the
Germans properly denominate them the _formschneiders_, whilst, perhaps,
the greatest part of them really belong to the designers.” He commits
in the early part of the chapter the very error which he ascribes to
others. According to his own principles, as expressed in the last
extract, he was bound to allow the mark [[HL]] to be that of the
designer until he could show on probable grounds that it was not. But
though Mr. Douce might deny that Holbein were the designer of those
cuts, it seems that he durst not venture to follow up the line of his
argument, and declare that Hans Lutzelburger _was_ the designer, which
he certainly might have done with at least as much reason as has
led him to decide that Holbein _was not_. But he prudently abstained
from venturing on such an affirmation, the improbability of which,
notwithstanding the mark, might have led his readers to inquire, how
it happened that so talented an artist should have remained so long
undiscovered, and that even his contemporaries should not have known
him as the designer of those subjects.
Though I am satisfied that the mark [[HL]] is that of the _engraver_ of
the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death, I by no means
pretend to account for its appearing alone--thus forming an exception to
the general rule--without the mark of the designer, and without any
mention of his name either in the title or preface to the book. We have
no knowledge of the connexion in the way of business between the working
wood engravers and the designers of that period; but there seems reason
to believe that the former sometimes got drawings made at their own
expense and risk, and, when engraved, either published them on their own
account, or disposed of them to booksellers and printers. It is also to
be observed that about the time of the publication of the first Lyons
edition of the Dance of Death, or a few years before, wood engravers
began to occasionally introduce their name or mark into the cut, in
addition to that of the designer. A cut, in a German translation of
Cicero de Officiis, Frankfort, 1538, contains two marks; one of them
being that of Hans Sebald Behaim, and the other, the letters H. W.,
which I take to be that of the engraver. At a later period this practice
became more frequent, and a considerable number of wood-cuts executed
between 1540 and 1580 contain two marks; one of the designer, and the
other of the engraver: in wood-cuts designed by Virgil Solis in
particular, double marks are of frequent occurrence. As it seems evident
that the publishers of the Lyons Dance of Death were desirous of
concealing the name of the designer, and as it appears likely that they
had purchased the cuts ready engraved from a Swiss or a German,--for the
designs are certainly not French,--it surely cannot be surprising that
he should wish to affix his mark to those most admirable specimens of
art. Moreover, if those cuts were not executed under the personal
superintendence of the designer, but when he was chiefly resident in a
distant country, the engraver would thus have the uncontrolled liberty
of inserting his own mark; and more especially, if those cuts were a
private speculation of his own, and not executed for a publisher who had
employed an artist to make the designs. Another reason, perhaps equally
us good as any of the foregoing, might be suggested; as those cuts are
decidedly the best executed of any of that period, the designer--even if
he had opportunities of seeing the proofs--might have permitted the mark
of the engraver to appear on one of them, in approbation of his talent.
This mark, [[HL]], was first assigned to a wood engraver named Hans
Lutzelburger, by M. Christian von Mechel, a celebrated engraver of
Basle, who in 1780 published forty-five copper-plate engravings of a
Dance of Death from drawings said to be by Holbein, and which almost
in every respect agree with the corresponding cuts in the Lyons work,
though of greater size.[VI-25] M. Mechel’s conjecture respecting the
engraver of those cuts appears to have been first published in the
sixteenth volume of Von Murr’s Journal; but though I am inclined to
think that he is correct, it has not been satisfactorily shown that
Hans Lutzelburger ever used the mark [[HL]]. He, however, lived at that
period, and it is almost certain that he executed an alphabet of small
initial letters representing a Dance of Death, which appear to have been
first used at Basle by the printers Bebelius and Cratander about 1530.
We give (on the following page) the entire series. He is also supposed
to have engraved two other alphabets of ornamental initial letters, one
representing a dance of peasants, “intermixed,” says Mr. Douce, “with
other subjects, some of which are not of the most delicate nature;” the
other representing groups of children in various playful attitudes.
All those three alphabets are generally described by German and Swiss
writers on art as having been designed by Holbein; and few impartial
persons I conceive can have much doubt on the subject, if almost perfect
identity between most of the figures and those in his known productions
be allowed to have any weight.
[Footnote VI-25: Mechel’s work is in folio, with four subjects on
each full page, and is entitled “Oeuvre de Jean Holbein, ou
Receuil de Gravures d’après ses plus beaux ouvrages, &c. Première
Partie. La Triomphe de Mort.” It is dedicated to George III, and
the presentation copy is in the King’s Library at the British
Museum. The first part contains, besides forty-five subjects of
the Dance of Death, the design for the sheath of a dagger from a
drawing ascribed to Holbein, which has been re-engraved in the
work of Mr. Douce. It is extremely doubtful if the drawings of the
Dance, from which Mechel’s engravings are copied, be really by
Holbein. They were purchased by M. Fleischmann of Strasburg, at
Crozat’s sale at Paris in 1741. It was stated in the catalogue
that they had formed part of the Arundelian collection, and that
they had afterwards come into the possession of Jan Bockhorst,
commonly called Lang Jan, a contemporary of Vandyke. This piece of
information, however, can only be received as an auctioneer’s
puff. M. Mechel himself, according to Mr. Douce, had not been able
to trace those drawings previously to their falling into the hands
of Monsieur Crozat. They were purchased of M. Fleischmann by
Prince Gallitzin, a Russian nobleman, by whom they were lent to
M. Mechel. They are now in the Imperial Library at Petersburg.
According to Mr. Coxe, who saw them when in M. Mechel’s
possession, they were drawn with a pen, and slightly shaded with
Indian ink. Hegner, in his Life of Holbein, speaks slightingly of
Mechel’s engravings, which he says were executed by one of his
workmen from copies of the pretended original drawings made by an
artist named Rudolph Schellenburg of Winterthur. Those
copper-plates certainly appear feeble when compared with the
wood-cut in the Lyons work, and Hegner’s criticism on the figure
of Eve seems just, though Mr. Douce does not approve of it. Hegner
says, “Let any one compare the figure of Eve under the tree in
Mechel’s second plate with the second wood-cut; in the former she
is sitting in as elegant an attitude as if she belonged to a
French family by Boucher.”--Boucher, a French painter, who died in
1770, was famous in his time for the pretty women introduced into
his landscapes.]
[Illustration]
There is a set of proofs of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, printed
on one sheet, preserved in the Public Library at Basle, and underneath
is printed in moveable letters the name +HAnns Lützelburger
formschnider, genannt Franck+,--that is, “Hanns Lutzelburger, wood
engraver, named Franck.” The first H is an ornamented Roman capital; the
other letters of the name are in the German character. The size of the
cuts in this alphabet of the Dance of Death is one inch by
seven-eighths. The reason for supposing that Hans Lutzelburger was the
engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons Dance of Death
are: 1. The similarity of style between the latter and those of the
Basle alphabet of the same subject; and 2. The correspondence of the
mark in the cut of the Duchess with the initial letters of the name
H[ans] L[utzelburger], and the fact of his being a wood engraver of that
period. Mr. Douce, in the seventh chapter of his work, professes to
examine the “claim of Hans Lutzelburger as to the design or execution of
the Lyons engravings of the Dance of Death,” but his investigations seem
very unsatisfactory; and his chapter is one of those “in which,” as
Fielding says, “nothing is concluded.” He gives no opinion as to whether
Lutzelburger was the designer of the Lyons cuts or not, though this is
one of the professed topics of his investigation; and even his opinion,
for the time being, as to the engraver, only appears in the heading of
the following chapter, where it is thus announced: “_List of several
editions of the Lyons work on the Dance of Death, with the mark of
Lutzenburger_.”[VI-26] His mind, however, does not appear to have been
finally made up on this point; for in a subsequent page, 215, speaking
of the mark [[HL]] in the cut of the Duchess, which he had previously
mentioned as that of Hans Lutzelburger, he says, “_but to whomsoever
this mark may turn out to belong_, certain it is that Holbein never made
use of it.” His only unalterable decision appears to be that Holbein did
not design the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, and in support of it he
puts forth sundry arguments which are at once absurd and inconsistent;
rejects unquestionable evidence which makes for the contrary opinion;
and admits the most improbable that seems to favour his own.
[Footnote VI-26: Mr. Douce in every instance spells the name thus.
In the proofs of the alphabet of the Dance of Death it is
_Lützelburger_, and below the cut with the date 1522,
_Leuczellburger_.]
Mr. Douce, in his seventh chapter, also gives a list of cuts, which he
says were executed by Hans Lutzelburger; but out of the seven single
cuts and three alphabets which he enumerates, I am inclined to think
that Lutzelburger’s name is only to be found attached to one single cut
and to one alphabet,--the latter being that of the initial letters
representing a Dance of Death. The single cut to which I allude--and
which, I believe, is the only one of the kind that has his name
underneath it,--represents a combat in a wood between some naked men and
a body of peasants. Within the cut, to the left, is the mark, probably
of the designer, on a reversed tablet, [Symbol] thus; and underneath is
the following inscription, from a separate block: HANNS . LEUCZELLBURGER
. FURMSCHNIDER × 1.5.2.2. An impression of this cut is preserved in the
Public Library at Basle; and an alphabet of Roman capitals, engraved on
wood, is printed on the same folio, below Lutzelburger’s name. In not
one of the other single cuts does this engraver’s name occur, nor in
fact any mark that can be fairly ascribed to him. The seventh cut,
described by Mr. Douce,--a copy of Albert Durer’s Decollation of John
the Baptist,--is ascribed to Lutzelburger on the authority of Zani.
According to this writer,--for I have not seen the cut myself any more
than Mr. Douce,--it has “the mark H. L. reversed,” which perhaps may
prove to be L. H. “In the index of names,” says Mr. Douce, “he (Zani)
finds his name thus written, HANS LUTZELBURGER FORMSCHNIDER GENANT
(chiamato) FRANCK, and calls him the true prince of engravers on wood.”
In what index Zani found the reversed mark thus expounded does not
appear; I, however, am decidedly of opinion that there is no wood-cut in
existence with the mark H. L. which can be ascribed with anything like
certainty to Lutzelburger; and his name is only to be found at length
_under_ the cut of the Fight above mentioned, and printed in moveable
characters on the sheet containing the proofs of the alphabet of the
Dance of Death.[VI-27] The title of “true prince of engravers on wood,”
given by Zani to Lutzelburger, can only be admitted on the supposition
of his being the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons
Dance of Death; but it yet remains to be proved that he ever used the
mark [[HL]] or the separate letters H. L. on any previous or subsequent
cut. Though, from his name appearing on the page containing the alphabet
of the Dance of Death, and from the correspondence of his initials with
the mark in the cut of the Duchess in the Lyons Dance of Death, I am
inclined to think that he was the engraver of the cuts in the latter
work, yet I have thought it necessary to enter thus fully into the
grounds of his pretensions to the execution of those, and other wood
engravings, in order that the reader may judge for himself.
[Footnote VI-27: There are proofs of this alphabet in the Royal
Collection at Dresden, as well as in the Public Library at Basle.]
Hegner, in his Life of Holbein, treats the claims that have been
advanced on behalf of Lutzelburger too lightly. He not only denies that
he was the engraver of the cuts in the first edition of the Lyons work,
but also that he executed the cuts of the alphabet of the Dance of
Death, although his name with the addition of “wood engraver”--
_formschnider_--be printed on the sheet of proofs. If we cannot admit
the inscription in question as evidence of Lutzelburger being the
engraver of this alphabet, we may with equal reason question if any wood
engraver actually executed the cut or cuts under which his name only
appears printed in type, or which may be ascribed to him in the title of
a book. Mr. Douce, speaking of the three alphabets,--of peasants, boys,
and a Dance of Death,--all of which he supposes to have been engraved by
Lutzelburger, says that the proofs “may have been deposited by him in
his _native_ city,” meaning Basle. Hegner, however, says that there is
no trace of him to be found either in registers of baptism or
burger-lists of Basle. He further adds, though I by no means concur with
him in this opinion, “It is indeed likely that, as a travelling dealer
in works of art--who, according to the custom of that period, took up
their temporary residence sometimes in one place, sometimes in
another,--he had obtained possession of those blocks, [of the alphabet
of Death’s Dance, and the Fight, with his name,] and that he sold
impressions from them in the way of trade.”[VI-28] Mr. Douce says that
it may admit of a doubt whether the alphabets ascribed to Lutzelburger
were cut on metal or on wood. It may admit of a doubt, certainly, with
one who knows very little of the practice of wood engraving, but none
with a person who is accustomed to see cuts executed in a much more
delicate style by wood engravers of very moderate abilities. To engrave
them on wood, would be comparatively easy, so far as relates to the mere
delicacy of the lines; but it would be a task of great difficulty to
engrave them in relief in any metal which should be much harder than
that of which types are composed. To suppose that they might have been
executed in type-metal, on account of the delicacy of the lines, would
involve a contradiction; for not only can finer lines be cut on box-wood
than on type-metal, but also with much greater facility.
[Footnote VI-28: Hans Holbein der Jüngere, S. 332.]
It perhaps may not be unnecessary to give here two instances of the many
vague and absurd conjectures which have been propounded respecting the
designer or the engraver of the cuts in the Lyons editions of the Dance
of Death. In a copy of this work of the edition 1545 now in the British
Museum, but formerly belonging to the Reverend C. M. Cracherode,
a portrait of a painter or engraver named Hans Ladenspelder is inserted
opposite to the cut of the Duchess, as if in support of the conjecture
that _he_ might be the designer of those cuts, merely from the
circumstance of the initial letters of his name corresponding with
the mark [[HL]]. The portrait is a small oval engraved on copper,
with an ornamental border, round which is the following inscription:
“Imago Joannis Ladenspelder, Essendiensis, Anno ætatis suæ xxviii.
1540.”[VI-29] The mark [[L]] is perceived on this portrait, and
underneath is written the following MS. note, referring to the mark
in the cut of the Duchess: “[[HL]] the mark of the designer of these
designs of Death’s Dance, not H. Holbein. By several persons that have
seen Holbein’s Death Dance at Basil, it is not like these, nor in the
same manner.” This note, so far as relates to the implied conjecture
about Ladenspelder, may be allowed to pass without remark for what it is
worth; but it seems necessary to remind the reader that the painting of
the Dance of Death at Basle, here evidently alluded to, _was not_ the
work of Holbein, and to observe that this note is not in the handwriting
of Mr. Cracherode, but that it has apparently been written by a former
owner of the volume.
[Footnote VI-29: Hans Ladenspelder was a native of Essen, a
frontier town in the duchy of Berg. The following mark is to be
found on his engravings [Symbol], which Bartsch thinks may be
intended for the single letters I. L. V. E. S.,--representing the
words _Joannes Ladenspelder Von Essen Sculpsit_.]
In a copy of the first edition, now lying before me, a former owner has
written on the fly-leaf the following verses from page 158 of the
Nugæ--Lyons, 1540,--of Nicholas Borbonius, a French poet:
“Videre qui vult Parrhasium cum Zeuxide,
Accersat a Britannia
Hansum Ulbium, et Georgium Reperdium
Lugduno ab urbe Galliæ.”
The meaning of these verses may be thus expressed in English:
Whoever wishes to behold,
Painters like to those of old,
To England straightway let him send,
And summon Holbein to attend;
Reperdius,[VI-30] too, from Lyons bring,
A city of the Gallic King.
[Footnote VI-30: Of this George Reperdius, or his works, nothing,
I believe, is known beyond the brief mention of his name in
conjunction with that of Holbein in the verses of Bourbon.]
To the extract from Borbonius,--or Bourbon, as he is more frequently
called, without the Latin termination,--the writer has added a note:
“_An Reperdius harum Iconum sculptor fuerit?_” That is: “Query, if
Reperdius were the engraver of these cuts?”--meaning the cuts contained
in the Lyons Dance of Death. Mr. Douce also cites the preceding verses
from Nicholas Bourbon; and upon so slight and unstable a foundation he,
_more solito_, raises a ponderous superstructure. He, in fact, says,
that “it is _extremely probable_ that he might have begun the work in
question [the designs for the Dance of Death], and have died before he
could complete it, and that the Lyons publishers might have afterwards
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.”
Perhaps in the whole of the discussion on this subject a more tortuous
piece of argument is not to be found. It strikingly exemplifies Mr.
Douce’s eagerness to avail himself of the most trifling circumstance
which seemed to favour his own views; and his manner of twisting and
twining it is sufficient to excite a suspicion even in the mind of the
most careless inquirer, that the chain of argument which consists of a
series of such links must be little better than a rope of sand. Mr.
Douce must have had singular notions of probability, when, upon the mere
mention of the name of Reperdius, by Bourbon, as a painter then residing
at Lyons, he asserts that it is _extremely probable_ that he, Reperdius,
might have begun the work: it is evident that he does not employ the
term in its usual and proper sense. If for “_extremely probable_” the
words “_barely possible_” be substituted, the passage will be
unobjectionable; and will then fairly represent the value of the
conjecture of Reperdius having designed any of the cuts in question. If
it be _extremely probable_ that the cuts of the first edition of the
Lyons Dance of Death were designed by Reperdius, from the mere
occurrence of his name in Bourbon, the evidence in favour of their being
designed by Holbein ought with equal reason to be considered as
_plusquam-perfect_; for the voices of his contemporaries are expressly
in his favour, the cuts themselves bear a strong general resemblance to
those which are known to be of his designing, and some of the figures
and details in the cuts of the Dance of Death correspond so nearly with
others in the Bible-cuts designed by Holbein, and also printed at Lyons
by the brothers Trechsel, and in the same year, that there cannot be a
doubt in the mind of any impartial inquirer who shall compare them, that
either both series must have been designed by the same person, or that
Holbein had servilely copied the works of an unknown artist greater than
himself. Upon one of the horns of this dilemma, Mr. Douce, and all who
assert that the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death _were not designed by
Holbein_, must inevitably be fixed.
One of the earliest evidences in favour of Holbein being the designer of
the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death is Nicholas Bourbon, the author of
the epigram previously cited. In an edition of his Nugæ, published at
Basle in 1540, are the following verses:[VI-31]
[Footnote VI-31: Neither these verses, nor those previously cited,
occur in the first edition of the Nugæ, Paris, 1533.]
_De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili._
Dum mortis Hansus pictor imaginem exprimit,
Tanta arte mortem retulit ut mors vivere
Videatur ipsa: et ipse se immortalibus
Parem Diis fecerit operis hujus gloria.
Now,--after premising that the term _picta_ was applied
to designs engraved on wood, as well as to paintings in oil or
water-colours,[VI-32]--it may be asked to what work of Holbein’s
do these lines refer? The painting in the church-court at Basle
was not executed by Holbein; neither was it ascribed to him by his
contemporaries; for the popular error which assigns it to him appears to
have originated with certain travellers who visited Basle upwards of a
hundred years after Holbein’s decease. It indeed may be answered that
Bourbon might allude to the _alphabet_ of the Dance of Death which has
been ascribed to Holbein. A mere supposition of this kind, however,
would be untenable in this instance; for there is no direct evidence to
show that Holbein was the designer of this alphabet, and the principal
reason for supposing it to have been designed by him rests upon the
previous assumption of his being the designer of the cuts of the Lyons
Dance of Death. Deny him the honour of this work, and assert that the
last quoted verses of Bourbon must relate to some other, and the
difficulty of showing by anything like credible evidence, that he was
the designer of any other series of cuts, or even of a single cut, or
painting, of the same subject, becomes increased tenfold. Mr. Douce,
with the gross inconsistency that distinguishes the whole of his
arguments on this subject, ascribes the alphabet of the Dance of
Peasants to Holbein, and yet cautiously avoids mentioning him as the
designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, though the reasons for
this conclusion are precisely the same as those on which he rests the
former assertion. Nay, so confused and contradictory are his opinions on
this point, that in another part of his book he actually describes both
alphabets as being the work of the same designer and the same engraver.
[Footnote VI-32: At that period a wood-cut, as well as a painting,
was termed _pictura_.--On the title-page of an edition of the New
Testament, with wood-cuts, Zurich, 1554, by Froschover, we find
the following: “Novi Testamenti Editio postrema per Des. Erasmum
Roterodamum. Omnia _picturis_ illustrata.”]
“Some of the writers on engraving,” says Mr. Douce, “have manifested
their usual inaccuracy on the subject of Holbein’s Dance of
Peasants. . . . . . . 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. In a set of initial
letters frequently used in books printed at Basle and elsewhere,”
&c. After thus having unhesitatingly ascribed the Dance of Peasants to
Holbein, Mr. Douce, in a subsequent page,--when giving a list of cuts
which he ascribes to Hans Lutzelburger,--writes as follows: “8. An
alphabet with a Dance of Death, the subjects of which, with a few
exceptions, are the same as those in the other Dance; the designs,
however, occasionally vary,” &c. On concluding his description of this
alphabet, he thus notices the alphabet of the Dance of Peasants, having
apparently forgot that he had previously ascribed the latter to Holbein.
“9. Another alphabet _by the same artists_. It is a Dance of Peasants,
intermixed with other subjects, some of which are not of the most
delicate nature.”[VI-33]
[Footnote VI-33: Douce’s Dance of Death, pp. 80, 100, and 101.]
It is, however, uncertain if Mr. Douce really did believe Holbein to be
the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, though from the
preceding extracts it is plainly, though indirectly asserted, that he
_was_. In his wish to claim the engraving of the Dance of Peasants for
Lutzelburger, Mr. Douce does not seem to have been aware that from the
words “by the same artists,” coupled with his previous assertion, of
Holbein being the designer of that alphabet, it followed as a direct
consequence that he was also the designer of the alphabet of the Dance
of Death. Putting this charitable construction on Mr. Douce’s words, it
follows that _his_ assertion of Lutzelburger being the engraver of the
Dance of Peasants is purely gratuitous. If Mr. Douce really believed
that Holbein was the designer of the alphabet of the Dance of Death, he
ought in fairness to have expressly declared his opinion; although such
declaration would have caused his arguments, against Holbein being the
designer of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, to appear more
paradoxical and absurd than they are when unconnected with such an
opinion; for what person, with the slightest pretensions to rationality,
could assert that Holbein was the designer of the alphabet of the Dance
of Death executed in 1530, the subjects, with few exceptions, the same
as those in the Dance of Death published at Lyons in 1538, and yet in
direct opposition to contemporary testimony, and the internal evidence
of the subjects themselves, deny that he was the designer of the cuts in
the latter work, on the sole authority of the nameless writer of a
preface which only appeared in the first edition of the book, and which,
there seems reason to suspect, was addressed to an imaginary personage?
Was Madame Jehanne de Touszele likely to feel herself highly
complimented by having dedicated to her a work which contains undeniable
evidences of the artist’s having been no friend to popery? In one cut a
couple of fiends appear to be ridiculing his “Holiness” the pope; and in
another is a young gallant with a guitar, entertaining a nun in her
bed-chamber. If a pious abbess of St. Peter’s, Lyons, in 1538, should
have considered that such cuts “tended to edification,” she must have
been an extremely liberal woman for her age. It is exceedingly amusing,
in looking over the cuts of the Lyons Dance of Death, to contrast the
drollery and satire of the designer with the endeavours of the textuary
and versifier to give them a devout and spiritual turn.
As it is certain from the verses of Bourbon, in praise of Holbein as the
painter or designer of a subject, or a series of subjects, representing
“Death as if he were alive,”--ut mors vivere videatur,--that this
celebrated artist _had designed_ a Dance of Death, Mr. Douce, being
unable to deny the evidence thus afforded, paradoxically proceeds to fit
those verses to his own theory; and after quoting them, at page 139,
proceeds as follows: “It has already been demonstrated that these lines
could not refer to the old painting of the Macaber Dance at the
Dominican convent, whilst from the important dedication to the edition
of the wood-cuts first published at Lyons in 1538, it is next to
impossible that that work could then have been in Borbonius’s
contemplation. It appears from several places in his Nugæ that he was in
England in 1535, at which time Holbein drew his portrait in such a
manner as to excite his gratitude and admiration in another copy of
verses . . . . . . He returned to Lyons in 1536, and it is known that he
was there in 1538, when he probably wrote the complimentary lines in
Holbein’s Biblical designs a short time before their publication, either
out of friendship to the painter, or at the instance of the Lyons
publisher, with whom he was certainly connected.--Now, if Borbonius,
during his residence at Lyons, had been assured that the designs in the
wood-cuts of the Dance of Death were the production of Holbein, would
not his before-mentioned lines on that subject have been likewise
introduced into the Lyons edition of it, or at least into some
subsequent editions, in none of which is any mention whatever made of
Holbein, although the work was continued even after the death of that
artist? The application, therefore, of Borbonius’s lines must be sought
for elsewhere; but it is greatly to be regretted that he has not
adverted to the place where the painting,[VI-34] as he seems to call it,
was made.”
[Footnote VI-34: Mr. Douce here seems to lay some weight on the
word _picta_, which, as has been previously observed, was applied
equally to wood engravings and paintings.]
Mr. Douce next proceeds in his search after the “painting,” and he is
not long in finding what he wishes for. According to his statement,
“_very soon after_ the calamitous fire at Whitehall, 1697, which
consumed nearly the whole of that palace, a person, calling himself
T. Nieuhoff Piccard, probably belonging to the household of William III,
and a man who appears to have been an amateur artist,” made etchings
after nineteen of the cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death. Impressions of
those etchings, accompanied with manuscript dedications, appear to have
been presented by this T. Nieuhoff Piccard to his friends or patrons,
and among others to a Mynheer Heymans, and to “the high, noble, and
well-born Lord William Denting, Lord of Rhoon, Pendraght,” &c. The
address to Mynheer Heymans contains the following important piece of
information respecting a work of Holbein’s, which appears most
singularly to have escaped the notice of every other writer, whether
English or foreign. “Sir,--The costly palace of Whitehall, erected by
Cardinal Wolsey, and the residence of King Henry VIII, contains, among
other performances of art, a Dance of Death, _painted by Holbein_, in
its galleries, which, through an unfortunate conflagration, has been
reduced to ashes.”[VI-35] In the dedication to the “high, noble, and
well-born Lord William Benting,” the information respecting this curious
work of art,--all memory of which would have perished had it not been
for the said T. Nieuhoff Piccard,--is rather more precise. “Sir, [not My
Lord,]--In the course of my constant love and pursuit of works of art,
it has been my good fortune to meet with that scarce little work of Hans
Holbein, neatly engraved on wood, and which he himself had _painted as
large as life_, in fresco, on the walls of Whitehall.” Who Mynheer
Heymans was will probably never be discovered, but he seems to have been
a person of some consequence in his day, though unfortunately never
mentioned in any history or memoirs of the period, for it appears that
the court thought proper, in consideration of his singular deserts, to
cause a dwelling to be built for him at Whitehall. My Lord William
Benting,[VI-36]--though from his name and titles he might be mistaken
for a member of the Bentinck family,--appears to have been actually born
in the palace. It is, however, very unfortunate that his name does not
occur in the peerage of that time; and as neither Rhoon nor Pendraght
are to be found in Flanders or Holland, it is not unlikely that these
may be the names of two of his lordship’s _castles in Spain_.
[Footnote VI-35: Douce, Dance of Death, p. 141.]
[Footnote VI-36: “The identification of William Benting,” says Mr.
Douce with exquisite bon-hommie, “must be left to the sagacity of
others. He _could not have been_ the Earl of Portland created in
1689, or he would have been addressed accordingly. He is,
moreover, described as a youth born at Whitehall, and then
residing there, and whose dwelling consisted of nearly the whole
of the palace that remained after the fire.”--Dance of Death,
p. 244. It appears that these addresses of Piccard were written in
a foreign language, though, whether Dutch, French, German, or
Latin, Mr. Douce most unaccountably neglects to say: he merely
mentions that his extracts are translated.]