1816 Scarce Book -The Dance of Death, Danse Macabre by Hans Holbein, Color illustrated.
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(Description)
Author: Wenceslas Hollar; Hans Holbein.
Title: The Dance of Death, from the original designs of Hans Holbein. Illustrated with 33 plates, engraved by W. Hollar and with descriptions in English and French.
Language: Text in English and French.
Publisher: London, Printed for J. Coxhead, 1816.
Size: 8.5 " X 5.5 ".
Pages : [2], 70 pages.
Binding: Attractive and Very good contemporary full dark crimson morocco leather binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn, soiled and scuffed - as shown) under a removable protective mylar cover. All edges gilt.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, rare light foxing or staining - as shown, name of a previous owner on the first endpaper - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with all the beautiful illustrations in color, with the original frontispiece, the original 2 portraits, and the 30 original Holbein's plates. All hand colored!
Estimate: (USD 1200 - USD 1500)
The book: Rare and attractive 1816 color edition of The Danse Macabre (from the French language), also called the Dance of Death, -- an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the Danse Macabre unites all. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or a personification of death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, child, and laborer. It was produced as memento mori, to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now-lost mural at Holy Innocents' Cemetery in Paris dating from 1424 to 1425.
The illustrator: Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497[6] – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a German painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire, and Reformation propaganda, and he made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school. His Dance of Death (1523–26) refashions the late-medieval allegory of the Danse Macabre as a reformist satire. Holbein's series of woodcuts shows the figure of "Death" in many disguises, confronting individuals from all walks of life. None escape Death's skeleton clutches, even the pious.