Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death: Images, Editions and Mortality

Death does not wait until the king has finished ruling or the merchant has counted his money. In Hans Holbein's images, it arrives in the middle of ordinary life.

The Dance of Death was an established subject before Holbein, but his treatment gave it an extraordinary economy and sharpness. In a series of small designs made in Basel during the 1520s, figures from every rank of society are surprised by Death in scenes that are simultaneously dramatic, satirical and unsettling.

From drawings to woodcuts

Holbein supplied the designs, which were cut in wood by the highly skilled Hans Lützelburger. The precision of the cutting contributes decisively to the clarity of the images. Their small scale should not be mistaken for simplicity: each scene is carefully arranged to make its point at a glance.

The first printed book

The series was first published as a book in Lyon in 1538, under a French title, Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort. The gap between the creation of the designs and their book publication matters to bibliographers. Later publishers reused, copied and reinterpreted the images, sometimes in different media or with additions.

The collector’s challenge

A volume called The Dance of Death might contain early impressions, later woodcuts, derivative engravings or a nineteenth-century reproduction. Edition, maker, printing method, completeness and date must therefore be established before value can be assessed.

For a book about mortality, the sequence has survived in remarkably varied physical forms. Each new printing becomes another chapter in the long life of Holbein's images.

Sources: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Dance of Death; University of Glasgow: Dance of Death exhibition.

Explore Dance of Death editions at MFLIBRA.

Further reading at MFLIBRA

Edgar Allan Poe and The Raven: An Illustrated Literary Legacy  ·  Walter Scott’s Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830)