Holbein's Dance of death : exhibited in elegant engravings on wood ; also, Holbein's Bible cuts : consisting of ninety illustrations on wood / with a dissertation on the several representations of that subject by Francis Douce ; with introduction by Thos. Frognall Dibdin.

  • Douce, Francis, 1757-1834.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Holbein's Dance of death : exhibited in elegant engravings on wood ; also, Holbein's Bible cuts : consisting of ninety illustrations on wood / with a dissertation on the several representations of that subject by Francis Douce ; with introduction by Thos. Frognall Dibdin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    although attempts, more or less ingenious, have been made to connect them with the text. After 1562 no addition was made to the plates. From the date of the editio princeps it might be supposed that the designs were executed at or abouti538—theyearofits publication. But The Anist. this is not the case ; and there is good evi- dence that they were not only designed but actually cut on the wood some eleven years before the book itself was published. There are, in fact, several sets of impressions in the British Museum, the Berlin Museum, the Basle Museum, the Imperial Library at Paris, and the Grand Ducal Cabinet at Carlsruhe, all of which correspond with each other, and are believed to be engraver's proofs from the original blocks. These, which include every cut in the edition of 1538, except The Astrologer, would prove little of themselves as to the date of execution. But. luckily, there exists in the Cabinet at Berlin a set of coarse enlarged drawings in Indian ink, on brownish paper, of twenty-three of the series. These are in circular form; and were apparently intended as sketches for glass painting. That they are copied from the woodcuts is demonstrable, first, because they are not reversed as they would have been if they were the originals ; and, secondly, because one of them, No. 36 (The Duchess), repeats the conjoined H. L. on the bed, which initials are held to be the mono- gram of the woodcutter, and not to be part of the original design. The Berlin drawings must therefore have been executed subsequently to the woodcuts ; and as one of them, that representing the Emperor, is dated 1527, we get a date before which both the woodcuts,