CHAPTER X

THE “DANCE OF DEATH” AND OLD TESTAMENT WOODCUTS

The “Dance of Death” in literature and art—Early examples in Basel—Date of Holbein’s “Dance of Death” woodcuts—Early proofs—Date of publication—Description of the first edition—Reasons for delay in publication—Description of the separate woodcuts—Holbein’s “Alphabet of Death”—His illustrations to the Old Testament.

HOLBEIN’S fame as a designer of woodcuts, which had spread throughout Europe before the close of the sixteenth century, was due almost entirely to his celebrated “Dance of Death” pictures, and, in a lesser degree, to his Old Testament illustrations, both first published in 1538, though they were drawn, and for the greater part cut, between the years 1523 and 1526. They attained an immediate and widespread popularity, a popularity which has been a lasting one. Edition after edition followed in quick succession, and throughout the succeeding years down to the present day hardly a decade has passed without a fresh version being given to the world.

For centuries before the birth of Holbein the subject of Death in both pictorial and literary art was a favourite one throughout Europe, and more particularly among the German-speaking peoples, to whose imagination it made a strong appeal. Its representation both in painting and in literature was of common occurrence long before he made use of it, and by his genius rendered it immortal. The whole history of the subject is of great interest, and a voluminous literature has gathered round it, upon which it is not possible to touch in these pages. From the Middle Ages onwards these representations of the Dance of the Dead became common, and were painted on the walls of churches, the cloisters of convents, and castle halls. Well-known examples of such wall-paintings at one time existed in Paris, Blois, Berlin, Dresden, Lubeck, Strasburg, Basel, Berne, and other places, while in England a famous one was painted on the north side of St. Paul’s Cathedral during the reign of Henry VI. With the invention of printing, small versions of the pictures were issued in book form, and beneath them the old verses which accompanied the earlier wall-paintings, pointing out the terrors of death, and exhorting the wicked to repentance ere it was too late. In course of time the illustrations assumed greater importance, the number of the figures was increased, and the verses played only a secondary part.

[Sidenote: WALL-PAINTINGS OF “DANCE OF DEATH”]

More than one early wall-painting of the Dance existed in Basel in Holbein’s day, and there can be little doubt that the constant sight of them stirred his imagination, and influenced his conception of the subject when he in his turn made use of it. The earliest in point of date was the one in the Klingenthal nunnery in Little Basel, which is said to have been dated 1312; but it is doubtful whether much of this wall-painting remained by the beginning of the sixteenth century. Only a few badly-damaged portions were in existence in 1773, when it was rediscovered by Emanuel Büchel, a baker, who made coloured copies of what was left, which are now in the Basel Gallery. No traces of the original painting are now to be seen. The better-known Dance of the Dominican monastery in Great Basel in the suburb of St. John was of later date, executed probably towards the end of the fourteenth or early in the fifteenth century. According to tradition, for which there is no absolute proof, it was painted after the deliverance of Basel from the horrors of the terrible plague which raged there in 1439. It was copied or adapted from the older Klingenthal painting, closely following its arrangement of the various couples, but showing a great advance in artistic treatment, and in the variety and movements of the dancers. It consisted of about forty life-sized groups. In course of time it became so faded that in 1568 it was restored by Hans Hug Kluber, who made several additions to it; and it was again repaired in 1616, and in 1703. After that it was allowed to fall into a state of dilapidation, and in 1815 the wall of the cemetery of the monastery on which it was painted was pulled down by order of the Council, for the purpose of street improvements. A few remnants of it are still preserved in the Gallery, as well as coloured copies made by Emanuel Büchel in the same year as those he took from the Klingenthal painting. It is also well known from the engravings made after it by Merian in the seventeenth century.[475] This wall-painting was formerly regarded in Basel as the work of Holbein, a legend which was a long time dying. The mistake, no doubt, originally arose through the wide celebrity attained by the artist’s woodcut designs of the Dance, underneath which were printed verses taken from the older wall-paintings, so that the confusion between the two gradually grew, at first in Germany and elsewhere outside Switzerland, until in the end the error became established in Basel itself. At one time, too, the almost equally celebrated “Dance of Death” in the cemetery of the Dominican monastery in Berne, painted with the most biting satire by Niklaus Manuel, called Deutsch, was also attributed to Holbein. This wall-painting, which was finished before the year 1522, had completely perished by 1660, and the only records of it now remaining consist of a few drawings copied from it before its disappearance.

Holbein’s designs for the “Dance of Death”[476] were all made, and nearly all the blocks were cut, before Lützelburger’s death in the summer of 1526 and his own departure for England later in that year. This is not only proved by the evidence of the cuts themselves, which display a hand so masterly that it can only be that of Lützelburger, but also more directly from a series of copies of twenty-three of them preserved in the Berlin Museum. These are circular studies, about five inches in diameter, on brown paper, enlarged from the original blocks. They are somewhat coarse in execution, and appear to have been made for reproduction as glass-paintings. That they are not the original designs for the woodcuts, or taken from such designs, but were copied from the woodcuts themselves, is proved, first, by the fact that they are not reversed, as they would have been if based on the original drawings, and, secondly, that the one of “The Duchess” repeats the initials “H.L.” on the bedpost with which Lützelburger signed his work. These copies, therefore, must have been executed after the actual cutting of the blocks; and as one of them (“The Emperor”) is dated “1527,” it gives a date before which both the woodcuts, and the designs for them, must have been prepared. The copies were taken, no doubt, from one or other of the several proof impressions which were printed off while the work of cutting was in progress, complete sets of which are in the British, Berlin, and Basel Museums, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Grand Ducal Cabinet at Karlsruhe, while less complete sets are to be found elsewhere. The Basel set is printed on four folio sheets, on one side of the paper only, with ten cuts on each page, and the title of each subject printed over it in German, in italic movable type, as in all but one of the other proof impressions known. These proofs include the whole of the subjects in the first printed edition of 1538, with the exception of the one of “The Astrologer,” and they are of the greatest beauty and sharpness, and are printed in a fine black ink. The Bibliothèque Nationale also possesses a second but incomplete set of proofs, but among the subjects that of “The Astrologer” is included, which is missing in the other sets, which seems to indicate that it is a little later in date. This is the only copy extant, and, like the earlier ones, the set is printed on one side of the paper only, but has slight variations in the titles, which are printed in upright German Gothic characters instead of the more usual sloping Latin lettering.

[Sidenote: REASONS FOR DELAY IN PUBLICATION]

Lützelburger’s work upon the blocks was probably spread over several years. The “Alphabet of Death,” which appears to have been undertaken before the “Dance,” was first used in 1524, and Holbein’s designs for both series must have been prepared during that year and the following one. This was the period of the Peasants’ War, years of misery and bloodshed throughout Switzerland, and the state of feeling which it excited can be traced to some extent in these little pictures. This unsettled state of public affairs may have been the cause, otherwise almost inexplicable, of the long delay in the publication of the “Dance,” which was not issued until twelve years after the engraver’s death, and then not in Switzerland, but France. The acuteness of the religious controversy which divided Basel into two hostile factions, resulted, in 1524, in an edict of the Council forbidding the publication of all controversial matter; and although it is difficult to see much cause for controversy in the “Dance of Death,” it is easy to understand that in those days of doubt and disturbance the Basel publishers may well have hesitated to produce anything which might be considered as coming, however indirectly, within the ban of the civic authorities. Otherwise it seems certain that such a printer as Froben, or one of the other leading publishers, who knew so well the capabilities of both artist and engraver, would have been only too pleased to issue so fine a result of their united labours. Publication in Basel being debarred for the time, Lützelburger appears to have entered into negotiations with the Trechsels of Lyon, to whom, in the end, the blocks were transferred. The engraver was working for them at the time of his death, most probably on the “Dance” itself, one of the subjects of which, “The Waggoner,” he left unfinished, and the Trechsels, as already explained,[477] were put to some trouble before they could obtain possession of it. Probably Holbein had nothing to do with this transaction. He seems to have received a commission from Lützelburger for the designs, and to have had no further interest in the venture.

It is equally difficult to explain the delay on the part of the Trechsels in publishing the book, unless for a similar reason—a belief that the times were inopportune for the issue of such a satire. The cuts were at length published in 1538 under the title of “Les Simulachres & Historiees Faces de la Mort, avtant elegammēt pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées” (The Images and Storied Aspects of Death as elegantly delineated, as ingeniously imagined). From this it will be seen that the popular title for the work, “The Dance of Death,” by which it was already known by the end of the sixteenth century, is an incorrect one. The woodcuts were “Pictures of Death,” and though the characters introduced are largely those of the earlier representations, Holbein has entirely abandoned the general motive of a dance of the living and the dead, which was the leading characteristic of the numerous wall-paintings. Instead, each sheet forms a separate dramatic scene, in which Death, in the guise of a skeleton, claims the living as his prey. In Basel, however, where the wall-painting of the Dominican monastery was one of the most familiar sights, and one in which the citizens took great pride, the title by which it was known, “The Dance of Death,” was also popularly applied to the woodcuts shortly after their appearance, and the name has adhered to them ever since.

[Sidenote: FIRST EDITION OF THE DANCE]

The first edition is in the form of a small quarto. On the title-page below the title is a printer’s mark or emblem, which is not of Holbein’s designing or Lützelburger’s cutting, representing three heads—of an old man, a youth, and a woman—joined together, two in profile, and the central one, that of the woman, full face, with a star on her forehead, and a wreath above. From the shoulders spring a pair of peacock’s wings, the whole resting on a pedestal, on the top of which is an open book inscribed in Greek characters, “Gnothi Seauton,” and at the foot a serpent and two chained globes, one surmounted by a small cross, and the other with two wings. This emblem has the further motto “Usus me Genuit.” At the bottom of the page is printed, “A Lyon, Soubz lescu de Coloigne, M.D.XXXVIII.” At the end of the book, within an ornamental border, is the imprint: “Excvdebant Lvgdvni Melchior et Gaspar Trechsel Fratres. 1538.” Next to the title-page comes a preface of six pages, which is followed by seven pages descriptive of “diverses tables de Mort, non painctes, mais extraictes de l’escripture saincte, colorées par Docteurs Ecclesiastiques, et umbragées par Philosophes.” After these verbal sketches come the woodcuts themselves, forty-one in all, each one printed on a separate page, and, in place of the German titles of the various sets of early proofs, a text in Latin above the pictures, and beneath them a four-lined verse in French, written by Gilles Corrozet, containing moral reflections appropriate to the various subjects. The subjects themselves are not arranged in the same order as in the proof impressions, in which the clergy are separated from the laity, and the men from the women, beginning with the Pope and ending with the Little Child. In the Lyon edition the Emperor follows the Pope, and is in turn followed by the King, the Cardinal, the Empress, and so on. The pictures are succeeded by a series of descriptions of Death and reflections on mortality of a didactic character, under the title, “Figures de la Mort moralement descriptes, & depeinctes selon l’authorité de l’scripture & des sainctz Peres,” the whole being brought to a conclusion with a discourse, “De la Necessite de la Mort qui ne laisse riens estre pardurable.”

A passage in the French preface is of considerable interest, as it relates to the engraver of the woodcuts. This preface is dedicated “A moult reverende Abbesse de religieux Couuent S. Pierre de Lyon, Madame Jehanne de Touszele, Salut dun vray Zele.” The convent of Saint Pierre les Nonnains, of which Madame Jehanne was abbess, was a religious house of long standing, among its inmates being many noble and wealthy ladies. The author of this preface, who only signs it with his motto, “D’un vray zelle,” was Jean de Vauzelles, Pastor of St. Romain and Prior of Montrottier, poet and scholar, one of three famous brothers who took a leading part in the literary life of Lyon. The passage referred to may be translated as follows: “But to return to our figured representations of Death, we have greatly to regret the death of him who has imagined (_imaginé_) such elegant figures as are herein contained, as much excelling all those heretofore printed (_patronées_) 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 lifelike, while those of the living are the very pictures of mortality. It therefore seems to me that Death, fearing that this excellent painter (_painctre_) 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, 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.”[478]

[Sidenote: VAUZELLES’ PREFACE TO THE BOOK]

This passage is rather confusing, and at one time was supposed to refer to the designer, and not to the engraver of the woodcuts, and that Holbein, therefore, who was alive in 1538, could not have been the author of the designs. Now, however, that more modern research has proved that Lützelburger died in the summer of 1526, leaving several blocks which had been commissioned by the Trechsels unfinished, it becomes clear that Vauzelles, in his preface, is praising the woodcutter, and not the artist. It is true that the word “painctre” is used in one place, and that the term “imaginé” has been taken in the modern sense by earlier writers, whereas it is from the Latin “imaginatus” which has the same meaning as “sculptus.” In old French “ymaginier” is the same as “tailleur d’images,” just as “sculptor” was the common Latin expression for a stone-cutter or engraver. There is the possibility that Vauzelles was ignorant of Holbein’s share in the work, and imagined that both the designing and cutting of the blocks were the work of one man; but this is not very probable, for in the same year the Trechsels published the Old Testament woodcuts, also engraved by Lützelburger, in a second edition of which, issued in the following year, 1539, Holbein’s name as the designer is expressly mentioned in Nicolas Bourbon’s Latin verses which were added to the volume. Bourbon was in Lyon at the time, and in a new edition of his _Nugæ_, published shortly afterwards, he included a Latin epigram, not given in the first edition of 1533, headed, “De morte picta à Hanso pictore nobili,” which undoubtedly refers to Holbein as the painter or deviser of the “Dance of Death.” Taking these facts into consideration, it does not seem probable that Vauzelles would have been ignorant of Holbein’s connection with the work. In any case, the publishers must almost certainly have known it, and it may be conjectured that Bourbon’s verses were written expressly to accompany the “Dance,” just as his other lines were written for the Old Testament woodcuts, but that for some reason they were not used for that purpose.

Woltmann’s contention that Holbein’s name was purposely suppressed on account of the satirical character of the pictures, and that the preface was written with the intent to mystify, may be the correct solution. Holbein’s interest, he says,[479] like that of the publisher, rendered it desirable that they should appear anonymously. In Lyon every movement towards the Reformation was zealously opposed by the bishop and the authorities, and the bloody edict against heretics issued by Francis I was put in force. Many of these pictures of Death, especially sheets such as the Pope or the Nun, might have given offence to the strict Catholic party. This would possibly have been all the more serious, had the book appeared with the name of Holbein, who was at that time residing at the court of the Protestant King of England, and was a citizen of Basel, in Switzerland, from whence the new doctrines emanated.

These arguments, however, as far as the suppression of Holbein’s name is concerned, seem a little far-fetched. If certain of the woodcuts were likely to give offence, it is difficult to see how such offence could be removed by merely withholding the artist’s name. It is probable, as already pointed out, that Holbein had no personal interest in the publication either of the “Dance” or the Old Testament pictures, his active co-operation in the work having ceased twelve years or more earlier, when he had completed Lützelburger’s commission for the designs; and under such circumstances it is not likely that the Trechsels would have consulted him as to the use of his name or otherwise. The most reasonable explanation seems to be that it was omitted from the preface through an oversight or some confusion on the part of Vauzelles as to the separate identities of the artist and engraver, which the publisher did not consider was important enough to rectify. If it was safe to issue the book, there was surely no need to indulge in mysteries as to its authorship.

The book had an almost instantaneous success, and new editions followed in the course of a few years. The second edition was issued in 1542 from the same address, but by the brothers Frellon—“A Lyon, A lescu de Coloigne, chez Jan et François Frellon, freres”—and it has been assumed that the new publishers had acquired the business of the Trechsels. The latter were Germans who had settled in Lyon, the father, Johann Trechsel, having started business there as a printer in 1487. The Frellons were equally well known in the town as publishers, and it is probable that they had become the proprietors of the rival establishment by 1538, and that the Trechsels were then only conducting the printing under their orders, for the preface to the Old Testament pictures, first published in that year, is signed by Franciscus “Frelläus,” and subsequent editions of both publications bore the name of this firm. A third edition, in Latin, was published in the same year, 1542, with the title “Imagines de morte et epigrammata e Gallico idiomate in Latinum translata,” &c. The fourth appeared in 1545, with the title, “Imagines Mortis,” &c., in which Corrozet’s French verses under the cuts were translated into Latin by George œmmel or Æmilius, Luther’s brother-in-law. The only addition to the illustrations was a cut representing a lame beggar, introduced as a tail-piece to one of the discourses on death at the end of the book, but so poorly engraved that it is difficult to trace Holbein’s hand in the design. A fifth edition was issued in the same year, 1545, also under the title “Imagines Mortis,” in which eleven new cuts were added to those which had appeared in earlier editions, or twelve, counting the one of the “Lame Beggar.” These new subjects were, “The Soldier,” “The Gamblers,” “The Drunkards,” “The Fool,” “The Robber,” “The Blind Man,” “The Waggoner,” and four subjects with naked children, in one of which they are represented as hunters, in another they lead a horse upon which one of them is mounted, bearing a standard, while in a third they are engaged in carrying one of their comrades in triumph. These latter cuts have no real connection with the subject-matter of the book, although French verses and Latin texts were added to them in an endeavour to find one, however far-fetched, but the designs are undoubtedly Holbein’s, and must have been drawn by him on the blocks and cut by Lützelburger. It may be conjectured that after the engraver’s death they were sent to Lyon with other unfinished blocks which the Trechsels had ordered from him. Three more editions were issued in 1547, the third of them with the title, “Les Images de la Mort,” and the original French verses of the first edition; and in 1549 a version was published with Italian title and text. In the preface to the latter, Jehan Frellon, who was the sole publisher from 1547 onwards, makes complaint of a pirated edition which had been printed in Venice two years previously.

[Sidenote: LATER EDITIONS OF THE BOOK]

Further editions followed in 1554 and 1562, the number of illustrations in the last-named being increased to fifty-eight by the addition of five new cuts, thus making seventeen more pictures than had appeared in the original edition of 1538. Two of these fresh illustrations, “The Bridegroom” and “The Bride,” rightly belong to the series, and though they made their first appearance nineteen years after Holbein’s death, were undoubtedly drawn by him, and in all probability at the same time as the other designs of the series, between 1523 and 1526. The remaining additions consist of three more subjects with children, which again have every appearance of the same authorship. In one of these they appear as Bacchanalians, in another as musicians, and in the third they are carrying a suit of Roman armour.

It is needless to enumerate the many editions which followed these earlier ones. Inferior copies and pirated editions, in which much of the beauty of the original woodcuts was lost, were numerous, and appeared in many parts of Europe. The earliest copy was apparently the small folio, entitled “Todtentantz,” printed at Augsburg in 1544, and published by Jost de Negker.[480] In the following year appeared the pirated Venetian copy. Five editions of a third version, with fifty-three cuts, were published in Cologne between 1555 and 1573, while another copy appeared at Wittemberg in 1590. Of the copperplate engravings copied from them the most important were the set of thirty etched by Wenceslaus Hollar between 1647 and 1651, which appear to be based not on one of the original Lyon editions, but on the copy produced at Cologne. Forty-six of the subjects were etched by David Deuchar in 1788, but these are of very inferior workmanship, and mere caricatures of Holbein’s designs. In 1789 a free copy was cut by John Bewick, the younger brother of the more famous Thomas, and published under the title of “Emblems of Mortality.” Turning to more recent days, they were reproduced upon stone in 1832 with great care by Joseph Schlotthauer, Professor in the Academy of Fine Arts at Munich; and these were re-issued in England by John Russell Smith in 1849. The best modern wood engravings after them are those cut by Bonner and John Byfield for Douce’s “Holbein’s Dance of Death” in 1833. The “Dance” has also been rendered in photo-lithography for an edition issued by H. Noel Humphreys in 1868, and for the Holbein Society in 1879. In 1886 Dr. F. Lippmann edited for Mr. Quaritch a set of reproductions of the engraver’s proofs in the Berlin Museum; and the _editio princeps_ has been facsimiled by one of the modern processes for Hirth of Munich, as vol. x. of the Liebhaber-Bibliothek, 1884.[481]

[Sidenote: BEAUTY AND DRAMATIC FORCE]

These woodcuts are among the finest manifestations of Holbein’s art. Small as they are, they have a largeness of design, a dramatic force and fertility of invention, and a brilliance of draughtsmanship which place them not only among the greatest achievements of the artist, but of the century in which he worked. Each little picture tells its tale and points its moral with the utmost clearness, and the interest never flags throughout the series, although each one is merely a variation on a single theme. Detail there is in plenty, but it does not confuse the main action of the play, but rather helps to make the meaning which underlies it still clearer. There is nowhere a line too much or too little. The space to be filled is so small that these details are minute, yet Holbein’s line is so broad, and his hand so unerring, that nothing is confused or meaningless. The spacing of each cut is masterly, so that they produce the effect of a great design set forth on some spacious canvas. Few as the touches of the pencil may be, they are sufficient to give each small figure its own individual appearance and character, as though it were an actual portrait studied from the life, while the action is natural and unexaggerated, and well expresses the particular emotion called forth in each separate case by the sudden and unexpected appearance of Death.

Death is represented throughout the series as a skeleton, occasionally with scanty, tattered garments, and wearing the most characteristic portions of the dress of the particular mortal he is about to snatch from the world of the living. Thus, in the woodcut of the Pope, Death wears a cardinal’s hat; in the Abbot he has a mitre on his head, and carries a crosier across his shoulder; and in the Knight he is dressed in chain mail. In two of the pictures, the Empress and the Nun, Death is represented as a woman, and in several there are two skeletons who seize or attend the victim. In his representation of them Holbein displays little anatomical knowledge, but in spite of this the dead bones live, and in their movements, their expression, and their suggestion of the grim horror of death, produce an effect of vivid reality, which could not be bettered even though he had thought fit to give them greater scientific accuracy. In almost every case Death greets his prey with a mocking, ironical grin, and in most instances, too, he comes quietly, his presence unnoticed by those about to fall into his clutches; and with natural, unexaggerated movements and actions he assumes the principal part in the drama. In a few instances, however, he makes known his presence in a more aggressive manner, and seizes his victims with such violence that they cry aloud in terror or rage, and struggle to break away from his merciless grip. The victims whom he treats in this fashion are those who have themselves led violent lives. His action, in short, is always appropriate to the character and worldly position of those whose days he is about to cut short. He comes always as a mocker, and the prevailing note of the whole series is one of irony.

The first four cuts form, as it were, a preface to the actual “Dance of Death” which follows. The first of all represents the Creation. The Almighty bends over Adam, who lies asleep on a small island amid the waters, and draws Eve from his side. Then comes one of Adam and Eve in Paradise. The serpent, with human head, is twined round the branches of the tree, beneath which Adam is reaching up to pluck the fruit, while Eve is seated below, leaning against a rock. All around them, as in the first sheet, are animals—a stag, a sheep, a goat, a dog, a monkey, a rabbit, a hedgehog, a lizard, and so on—while in the branches of the beautifully drawn tree are a number of birds. The third cut represents the Expulsion from Paradise, with the angel with the flaming sword flying in a cloud over the heads of the guilty couple. In this cut Death makes his first appearance. Playing upon his viol, he leads the way, dancing as he goes. This is one of the few instances throughout the set in which Holbein has so represented Death; in most of the illustrations he does not follow at all closely the earlier wall-paintings, in which the living and the dead are shown dancing together. In the next scene Adam is at work clearing the rough ground, with Death at his side helping him to uproot a tree, and Eve seated, half naked, in the background, suckling her child, her distaff held across one arm. This is followed by a design headed in the proof impressions “Gebeyn aller Menschen” (Bones of all Men), a crowd of skeletons in front of a charnel-house, with drums, trumpets, and other musical instruments, as though forming the orchestra which is to provide the music for the play which is about to follow. Some wear fantastic head-dresses, and their winding-sheets still hang around them in tatters.

[Sidenote: THE EMPEROR, AND OTHERS]

The Dance opens with the Pope upon his throne, whom Death seizes as he is about to place the crown upon the head of a king who kneels to kiss his foot. Round him stand high dignitaries of the Church, among whom is a second figure of Death, a mocking figure, wearing a cardinal’s hat surmounted with a cross, and holding another cross aloft. In the curtain over the throne lurks a small devil or demon, and a second, holding a bull with five seals, flies over the heads of the ecclesiastics. In this the satire is so bold that it was altered in some of the later editions of the book. The Emperor (Pl. 66 (1)), too, sits on his throne, underneath a baldachin supported by Renaissance pillars, the Golden Fleece across his shoulders, the sword of justice in his hand, and the orb on a cushion at his feet. He is surrounded by his counsellors, and on the right a poor man kneels demanding justice. The Emperor, who bears a recognisable likeness to Maximilian, turns from him with frowning face towards the rich oppressor, who attempts, with little success, to excuse himself. Death has sprung upon the throne behind the monarch, and is about to tear the imperial crown from his head. On the ground is the hour-glass, with the sand almost run out, which is introduced into nearly all the pictures. The King (Pl. 66 (2)), who sits at table within an open loggia, is evidently intended to represent Francis I. The face, small as it is, has a strong resemblance to his portraits, and the curtain behind his chair is patterned with the lilies of France. The table is crowded with dishes, among which stands the hour-glass. Death mingles with the serving-men, and pours wine from a jug into a bowl for the King to drink. Between the pillars of the room can be seen the houses of the city. The Cardinal (Pl. 66 (3)), a distinguished figure, sits among the vine-trees, and, just as he presents a letter of indulgence to a kneeling man, Death, a grisly figure with long wisps of hair hanging from skull and chin, tears his hat from his head. Next comes the Empress (Pl. 66 (4)), walking in the garden in front of her palace, with her ladies of honour around her, one of whom bears her train. Death, disguised as one of her women attendants, leads her by the arm to the brink of an open grave, of which she and those with her are quite unconscious. She is followed by the Queen, whom Death, in the motley of a court jester, seizes by one hand, and drags away, while in the other he holds his hour-glass aloft. She shrieks aloud in terror, while the cavalier who accompanies her attempts to set her free, and her maid-of-honour flings up her arms in despair. The scene takes place in front of a Renaissance loggia, with open country and a village in the distance.

The woodcut of the Bishop is one of the most beautiful of the designs. Death takes the arm of the aged prelate and gently leads him away. It illustrates the text: “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad.” Behind the two chief actors the sheep and their distracted shepherds are seen wandering in all directions. The background is a very picturesque landscape with high mountains, on one of which rises a castle, and the western sun, filling the sky with light, is just sinking behind their crests. Next comes the Duke with his retinue, of whom a poor woman with her child begs alms, and as he turns his head away in refusal, Death, crowned with a wreath of vine-leaves, reaches forward as though to pluck his ermine cape from his shoulders. Underneath a tree, in the branches of which is placed the hour-glass, the same grim skeleton, with mitre on head and crozier on shoulder, seizes the fat Abbot by the robes, and pulls him after him, his victim vainly protesting, and striving to hurl his breviary at his attacker’s head. In similar fashion he drags along the Abbess by her scapulary from the convent gateway with its little belfry. She cries aloud in her terror, clutching her beads in her clasped and trembling hands, while the porteress joins in her lamentations, raising her arms to heaven. The Nobleman shows less fear when his time comes. He flourishes his long sword over his head, and attempts at the same time to push away Death, who drags him towards a bier on the ground with the hour-glass resting upon it. In striking contrast to the violence of this scene is the following one of the Canon or Prebendary, who is entering a church, attended by his falconer, his jester, and his page. Death, wearing a hood, walks quietly by his side, holding his hour-glass in front of him, as though to show the worldly churchman, whose face is not visible, that the sands have nearly run out. The unjust Judge stretches out his hand to receive a bribe from the rich man, while the poor petitioner on the other side is ignored; but Death, unnoticed, stands on a ledge behind his chair and breaks in two the Judge’s staff. The next picture harps upon the same theme. The Advocate (Pl. 66 (5)) is receiving his fee from a wealthy citizen whom he has helped in despoiling a poor man, who stands with clasped hands in the background. Death thrusts himself between them, hour-glass held aloft, and drops into the Advocate’s open hand a few gold coins. The action takes place in a street of gabled houses and cobbled pavements, a transcript of a corner of Basel of Holbein’s own day. The Counsellor (Pl. 66 (6)), in his furred gown and cap, is also shown in the street, deep in consultation with a nobleman, and oblivious to the entreaties of a man clad in rags, who, hat in hand, touches him on the shoulder to attract his attention. Perched upon the Advocate’s back, a little winged devil with curly tail blows into his ear with a small pair of bellows; while Death, as a sexton, lies at his feet, with spade and hour-glass, ready to trip him up.

VOL. I., PLATE 66.

[Sidenote: PREACHER, PRIEST, NUN, AND OTHERS]

One of the most beautiful designs of the series shows the Preacher (Pl. 66 (7)) in his pulpit, expounding a false doctrine which he believes to be the true one, his hands held forth in exhortation. Behind him stands the other preacher, Death, wearing a stole, and with a jaw-bone upraised over the unheeding victim’s head as though about to strike him down. The members of his congregation, some standing, some seated on low stools, gaze upwards with close attention, except one who has fallen asleep with his head against the pulpit base. Both the preacher and several of his listeners, especially the woman seated in the front on the right, are very expressive figures, and are drawn with masterly precision. Next comes the Priest (Pl. 66 (8)), one of the few of Death’s victims whom Holbein has depicted without a touch of irony or satire. He passes along the street in his robes, bearing the sacrament to the bedside of some dying man, preceded by Death, who acts as his sacristan, with bell and lantern, his hour-glass tucked under his arm. Very different is Death’s treatment of the Mendicant Friar, whom he seizes roughly by the hood, just as he is about to enter his monastery with well-filled box and begging-bag. There is bitter satire, too, in the picture of the Nun, kneeling in front of the altar in her cell, but her head turned behind her towards the young gallant who sits on the edge of her bed and plays his lute. Behind them Death, in the guise of an old hag, stretches forth a hand to extinguish the altar candles. Two skeletons accompany the Old Woman, who totters along a rough road by the aid of a stick, telling her rosary as she goes. One of them dances in front, playing with two sticks a musical instrument slung from his shoulders, while the other, crowned with a wreath, and a malicious grin upon his fleshless face, takes her by the arm, and dances by her side.

To the Physician in his chamber Death leads an old man broken down in health, and at the same time warns him that his hour, too, has come. A dog is curled up asleep in the foreground, and over the Physician’s head is a shelf with books and glass water-bottles as in Holbein’s portrait of Erasmus in Longford Castle. The setting of the Astrologer is one of the most effective and elaborate of the series. His chair and the circular table, covered with books and mathematical instruments, at which he sits, are richly carved and ornamented. He is gazing at a celestial globe which hangs over his head, while Death strives to attract his attention by holding a skull for his inspection. The Rich Man, in a gloomy chamber with a window with heavy double bars, sits surrounded by his money-chests and bags, a heap of gold spread before him on the table. He springs up in a fury of anger at the sight of Death, perched on a stool and filling a large bowl with money from the heap. It is as bitter to him to lose his wealth as his life. Equally furious is the feeling displayed by the Merchant, upon whom Death pounces, seizing him by both hair and cloak, at the moment when he is examining and checking his bales and barrels of merchandise which have just been unshipped on the quay. A companion, a bearded man, cries out in fear, with uplifted hands. Behind them the masts and spars of the ships in the harbour stand out against the sky. Terror, too, is the keynote of the Mariner. The storm is raging violently, the wind howls, and the waves dash over the ship. The greater part of the sail has blown away, and the sailors have abandoned all hope, and wring their hands in terror, as Death clambers over the side and snaps the mast in two.

VOL. I., PLATE 67.

[Sidenote: THE DUCHESS, AND OTHERS]

Some of the finest designs are to be found among the remaining woodcuts. Death, clad in chain mail, runs a lance through the body of the Knight, a man in full armour, with huge plumes in his helmet, who gives a last despairing cry and attempts to strike down his enemy with his sword. A low-lying landscape stretches out in the distance, lit up by the rays of the fast-sinking sun. The Count has little of the Knight’s bravery. He clasps his hands in terror as Death, disguised as a peasant, with his flail flung on the ground, prepares to strike him down with his own heraldic escutcheon. On the other hand, the Old Man (Pl. 67 (1)), bent with the weight of years, tottering down his garden with the help of a thick stick, finds in Death nothing but a kindly companion, who leads him gently by the hand to the edge of a deep grave dug in the turf, while with the other hand he plays a dulcimer. The Countess (Pl. 67 (2)) in her chamber, to whom her maid is handing a sumptuous dress, is helped in her toilet by Death, who fixes round her shoulders a necklace of dead men’s bones. The Nobleman’s Wife (Pl. 67 (3)) walks along hand in hand with her husband, who gazes on her with affection, oblivious to all else, while a grinning skeleton precedes them, beating vigorously on his drum. The woodcut of the Duchess (Pl. 67 (4)) is the one which Lützelburger has signed with his initials in an escutcheon on the foot of the bedpost. The lady, fully dressed, springs up from her sleep in fright, as Death at the end of the bed tears the coverlet from her. A second skeleton plays the fiddle, while her greyhound crouches terrified on the floor. Death is also accompanied by a music-making comrade when he encounters the Pedlar with his heavily-laden pack on his back, and clutches him by the sleeve.

Once again he comes in the guise of a friend to the old and weary Ploughman (Pl. 67 (5)), in rags and barefooted, his hair straggling through his broken hat. Death helps him in ploughing the last furrow, and flogs forward the worn-out team of thin and miserable horses. At the end of the field with its long ploughed lines a delightful landscape lies stretched, with the houses of a village nestling among the trees, the church tower rising from the hillside on one of the lower spurs of the Swiss mountains, the whole peaceful scene flooded with the light of the setting sun. This background is, perhaps, the most beautiful of all, and yet its lovely effect is produced with the simplest means. The long list of Death’s victims concludes with the Young Child (Pl. 67 (6)), whom he leads by the hand through the doorway of a miserable, half-ruined cottage, with broken roof open to all weathers. The child turns back in terror, its free hand stretched towards its mother, who kneels stirring the pot on the scanty fire, the smoke of which half fills the room. Both she and an older child gaze after the little one with mouth wide open in astonishment and fear, and hands uplifted to head. The original series concludes with two cuts, one representing the Last Judgment (Pl. 67 (7)), with Christ enthroned on the rainbow over the celestial globe, with the saints around him, and down below a crowd of men and women newly risen from the grave; and the other showing the Arms of Death (Pl. 67 (8)), which recalls, in its arrangement, more than one of Holbein’s designs for painted glass. The shield, on which is placed a skull, with a worm hanging from its jaws, is shattered and torn in places, as though fashioned from a great bone which has mouldered in the grave. A tattered winding-sheet is draped round it, and it is surmounted by a helmet with an hour-glass for a crest, from the base of which two skeleton arms grasping a large stone are raised aloft. The supporters are a man and woman in the rich costume of Holbein’s day, each of whom rests a hand on the escutcheon, the latter gazing down at it, while the former points to the skeleton arms and looks towards the spectator as though to urge him to remember that death is the end of all things. In the background rise the peaks of the Alps beneath a cloudy sky. Dr. Woltmann saw in these two figures likenesses of Holbein and his wife, but they evidently represent personages in a higher sphere of life.

[Sidenote: THE WAGGONER AND OTHERS]

The eight additional subjects which were included in the edition of 1545 were, with possibly one exception, designed by Holbein, and it seems almost certain that the cutting of most, if not all, of the blocks had been begun by Lützelburger, and that they were sent to Lyon after his death in 1526, as part of the commission he had received from the Trechsels. The first of them represents the Soldier, who is attacking Death with his two-handed sword. The latter is armed with a great bone and a circular shield. The ground beneath them is strewn with the dead and dying, and over the hills in the background comes rushing a body of soldiers, with a second skeleton beating a drum as he leads the charge. Next we have the Gamester, seated at table with two comrades. Death clutches him by the throat, and a devil seizes him by the hair. One of the party is counting his gains, and cards are strewn over the floor. This is followed by the Drunkard, a scene with men and women in the middle of a disorderly carouse, among whom Death stalks, and, pulling back the head of one of them, a gross and bloated old man, pours wine down his throat from a tankard. The Fool dances over the rough ground, one finger in his mouth, and a long bladder grasped in the other hand, as though about to strike at Death, who, falling into his humour, dances by his side to the music of the bagpipes he is playing. The Robber, hidden in the recesses of a wood, is springing from behind the trees in order to snatch the market-basket from the head of a barefooted woman who passes by as night is falling, but Death has him by the neck before he can accomplish his purpose. In the next scene he is leading the Blind Man by his stick towards the water into which the next step or two will plunge him; and then comes the Waggoner, the woodcut which in the preface is mentioned by name as the one which the engraver left unfinished. Vauzelles’ description of it is not in complete accord with the finished block. The driver is not crushed beneath his waggon, but stands with hands clasped over his head, and a look of mingled fear and consternation on his face. The horse within the shafts has fallen on the side of a steep hill, and the cart with its great barrels is overturned. Death springs up behind, and untwists the stick by which the cord which fastens the barrel is kept taut. A second skeleton carries away one of the waggon wheels, which has been broken off. The concluding design shows the Beggar, lame and blind, and almost nude, seated among the straw and rubbish in front of some rich man’s house, his hands raised as though imploring Death to come for him; but he is the only one from whom Death keeps aloof. This block, as already noted, is so badly cut that it is not easy to say with certainty whether Holbein was the designer of it. In the “Young Wife” of the 1562 edition, Death is dancing as he leads her away in tears, while they are preceded by a gaily dressed gallant who plays a guitar. In the companion cut, Death also dances, and blows a trumpet, as he drags off the “Young Husband” by the corner of his cloak. In the background is a ruined building.

It would be difficult to find a happier partnership than that which existed between the designer and the engraver of this great Dance. Lützelburger has reproduced Holbein’s dramatic story with the utmost sympathy and understanding, and from a technical point of view the cutting comes as near perfection as possible. Holbein’s delicate and expressive line is retained almost unimpaired, and there is no pretentious elaboration of detail merely to show the skill of the woodcutter. With the simplest methods—with sparing use of cross-hatching for the indication of light and shade—methods best suited to the material used, the most beautiful results have been obtained, for which designer and engraver must share the praise. So admirably are these cuts executed, says Chatto, “with so much feeling and with so much 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.”[482]

In this great work “in little” Holbein’s imagination found its fullest and most expressive play, and it is small wonder, therefore, that the Dance soon gained a wide popularity. Almost from the beginning it appears to have been well known as Holbein’s work, and numerous references to it occur in contemporary literature. The learned Conrad Gesner, of Zürich, a younger contemporary of the artist, expressly ascribes it to him in his _Partitiones Theologicæ_, &c., published in 1549. The passage runs: “Imagines Mortis expressæ ab optimo pictore Johanne Holbein cum epigrammatibus Georgii Æmylii, excusæ Francofurti et Lugduni apud Frellonios, quorum editio plures habet picturas. Vidi etiam cum metris Gallicis et Germanicis, si bene memini.” Van Mander, whose _Het Schilder Boek_ was first published in 1604, includes the Dance among Holbein’s works; and Joachim von Sandrart, in his Life of the artist, tells a charming story which indicates in how high an estimation Holbein’s designs were held just one hundred years after he drew them on the wood. Sandrart, who was a pupil of Gerard Honthorst at Utrecht, says: “I remember that in the year 1627, when the celebrated Rubens was proceeding to Utrecht to visit Honthorst, I accompanied him as far as Amsterdam; and during our passage in the boat I looked into Holbein’s little book of the _Dance of Death_, the cuts of which Rubens highly praised, recommending me, as I was a young man, to copy them, observing that he had copied them himself in his youth.” Sandrart was then a young man of twenty, and was on his way to England with his master. “And after this,” he adds, “Rubens held a beautiful and laudatory discourse almost the whole way upon Holbein, Dürer, and other old German painters.”[483]

VOL. I., PLATE 68.

[Sidenote: THE “DANCE OF DEATH” ALPHABET]

Holbein’s Alphabet of Death (Pl. 68),[484] also engraved by Lützelburger, displays all the inventive power and dramatic feeling of the larger Dance. These diminutive inch-square letters show the engraver’s wonderful delicacy of cutting, and his power of reproducing the artist’s designs in almost their full beauty and force. Much of the space in each one of them is occupied by the plain Roman letter itself, behind which the subject is arranged, and Holbein has succeeded in placing his minute figures so ingeniously that the action is not concealed by the letters to an extent detrimental to the clearness of the story. Isolated examples of the use of these letters in printed books occur as early as 1524, the letter N appearing in the Greek New Testament issued by Bebelius in that year, and a number of them are to be found in the publications of several Basel printers from 1525 onwards. This proves that the Alphabet was designed at about the same time, if not before, the Dance. The subjects of the twenty-four letters (J and U are not included) are, with few exceptions, the same as in the larger woodcuts, although in most cases they are treated differently. It is possible that Holbein, in drawing these letters on the blocks, became so fascinated with his theme, and delighted with the skill of his engraver, that he determined to carry it still further, and on a more important scale, in which the play of his poetic and ironic fancy could find even wider scope, without the hampering presence of the letters themselves. The backgrounds of the Alphabet are plain, but in the more than quadrupled space which the size of the Dance woodcuts permitted, he was able to add many details which helped to point his moral and tell his tale more vividly, and also those wonderful backgrounds, landscapes, street scenes, the interiors of palaces, offices, and hovels, which form so charming and characteristic a part of each little picture.

The smaller series begins, like the Dance, with the concourse of skeletons playing weird music for the dancers who follow, from the Pope in the letter B down to the Young Child in the letter Y. In certain instances, such as the Bishop (H), the Monk (O), the Soldier (P), the Fool (R), and the Gamblers (X), the action has a close resemblance to that in the cuts dealing with the same characters in the Dance, though differing in slight details. Thus the Fool in the Alphabet wears cap and bells, and Death, instead of dancing with him and playing the pipes, is seizing him violently by the shoulder. In a number of the letters two skeletons are shown, and they are occasionally aided by a small devil. The little child is torn from the cradle in the sight of its agonised mother, the Queen is dragged away by a rope round her neck, the Nun is led off gently by the hand, with head downcast, and the Drunkard, prone on the ground, has his last draught poured roughly down his throat, while the second skeleton seizes him by the leg as though to pull him up. Three new subjects are introduced into the series: the Courtesan, whom Death, wearing the high hat of a gallant, closely embraces, while his companion crawls away on his hands and knees, the hour-glass balanced grotesquely on his back; the Hermit, who is led gently from his cell, and the Horseman, behind whose back Death has sprung. The letter Z contains a reproduction of the Last Judgment conceived in a similar fashion to the woodcut of the Dance. The inclusion in this Alphabet of the Fool, the Soldier, and the Gamblers, who appear for the first time in the 1545 edition of the Dance, after the death of both artist and engraver, and the similarity of the conception in both series, afford further proof that the new subjects added to the Dance seven years after it was first published were drawn by Holbein on the blocks, although portions of the cutting of them were probably the work of some other hand than Lützelburger’s.

[Sidenote: EARLY EDITIONS OF THE WOODCUTS]

The third great work in which these two masters collaborated was the series of woodcut illustrations to the Old Testament,[485] first published, like the Dance of Death, at Lyon by the brothers Trechsel, and in the same year, 1538. The total number of these woodcuts is ninety-one, but the whole of them are not included in the earlier editions. The first issue (1538) contains eighty-eight of them, the rare “Fall” (1), “Nathan rebuking David” (40), and “Isaiah lamenting over Jerusalem” (72) being absent. In the second edition (1539) only the first of the series, “The Fall” is missing. In addition to these illustrations, the first four woodcuts of the “Dance of Death”—the Creation, the Temptation, the Expulsion, and Adam tilling the Ground—were borrowed from that publication, and placed at the beginning of the new one. The Bible cuts, which vary slightly in their dimensions, are of different form, being oblong and almost double the size of those of the Dance. They were issued as a small quarto picture-book, instead of being included, as was probably the artist’s or the engraver’s original intention, as illustrations to an edition of the Bible. In the same year, however, as the first issue of the book, they were used for the latter purpose, the complete set of ninety-one appearing in a Latin edition of the Bible produced by another Lyon printer, Hugo a Porta, though with the imprint of the Trechsels. The title of the first edition is as follows: “Historiarum veteris Instrumenti Icones ad vivum expressæ. Una cum brevi sed quoad fieri potuit, dilucida earundem expositione. Lugduni, sub scuto Coloniensi. M.D.XXXVIII.” The title-page contains an emblematic cut almost exactly similar to the one in the Dance, and with the same motto, “Usus me genuit.” The imprint at the end is also the same, with the names of Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel, and the date. The address to the reader is signed “Franciscus Frellæus” in the first two editions, but in subsequent issues the surname was given as “Frellonius.” This seems to indicate that the Frellons were already associated with the Trechsels in the business, of which they shortly afterwards obtained full control, the third edition (1543) of the Old Testament illustrations being published in their name, “apud Joannem et Franciscum Frellonios fratres,” and from the same address, “sub scuto Coloniensi.” Chatto[486] suggests that they were the actual publishers of the first editions of both the Bible cuts and the Dance, but for reasons of policy, connected with the satirical nature of the subject-matter of the designs, their names were withheld until the success of the two publications was assured. There is no mention of Holbein’s name in the first edition, but a year later, in the second, the publisher’s address is followed by a set of Latin verses by Holbein’s friend, Nicolas Bourbon, the French poet, in which the artist’s name, as the author of these designs, is coupled with Apelles, Zeuxis, and other famous painters of classical times, whom he is said in all ways to eclipse. Other verses in French were added, from the pen of Gilles Corrozet, which form more or less a rhyming paraphrase of Frellon’s address, in which the reader is exhorted to avoid seductive paintings of Venus, Diana, Helen, Dido, and other ladies celebrated in fable and poetry, and to turn instead to those sacred pictures taken from the Holy Scriptures, from the study of which far greater profit is to be obtained. Corrozet, no doubt, was also responsible for the French explanatory verse which, together with the appropriate Latin text, accompanied each woodcut, just as he was the author of the “descriptions severement rithmées” of the Dance of Death. There is no need to give a list of the later editions, which are almost as numerous as those of the Dance. An English edition was published in 1549, with the title—“The Images of the old Testament, lately expressed, set forthe in Ynglishe and Frenche with a playn and brief exposition. Printed at Lyons by Johin Frellon, the yere of our Lord God, 1549.”

These illustrations were drawn on the blocks by Holbein at about the same date as the Dance of Death pictures. This is proved not only from the fact that a number of them were engraved by Lützelburger, and that in style and composition they closely resemble the “Todtentanz” and other Basel designs by Holbein before his departure for England in 1526, but also because copies of more than half of them are to be found in the Bible published by Froschover in Zürich in 1531, showing that at least proofs of them were well known among Swiss publishers long before they were issued in book form in Lyon. There is a proof impression of the whole series in the Basel Gallery, on sheets printed only on one side, which was probably struck off immediately after the blocks were completed. It begins with the very rare “Fall,” which otherwise only appears in Hugo a Porta’s Bible of 1538, being missing in all editions in which the pictures appear alone, its place being taken in the latter by the four introductory sheets borrowed from the Dance of Death. The two other woodcuts already noted as missing from the first edition (Nos. 40 and 72), and absent, too, from the Latin Bible, are also to be found among the Basel proof impressions. In one instance, the “David and Uriah” (No. 39) there are two versions among these proofs, in one of which a background of wall, window, and curtain is introduced, but so badly engraved that it was evidently decided to abandon or alter the block in favour of the second version, in which the two figures are shown against a plain, white surface.

A large number of the illustrations were engraved by Lützelburger, but side by side with them are others which are the work of a far less skilful hand or hands. In one or two instances, such as the “Joel” (No. 86) and the “Zechariah” (No. 90), the workmanship is so rude that it is difficult to say with certainty that they are based on Holbein’s own designs. Woltmann suggests that these woodcuts were originally commissioned by Adam Petri, with the intention of using them to illustrate later editions of his German Old Testament, but that on account of the acute religious strife which then existed in Basel, it was thought advisable to hold them in reserve.[487] Even though Holbein’s name had been withheld from these designs, as it was from the Dance of Death, his authorship of them would still remain undoubted, for in style and method they are in exact agreement with the Dance woodcuts, and certain of the figures recall the still earlier “Praise of Folly” drawings. The children in some of these Bible cuts, such as those who jeer at the Fool (No. 69, Psalm lii.), those among the captive Midianites (No. 26, Numbers xxxi.), and those mocking Elisha (No. 47, 2 Kings ii.), all delightfully sympathetic little figures, have the closest resemblance to the children in the Duke or Elector, and the Young Child woodcuts of the Dance. The same resemblances are to be seen between many of the other figures, some of which still retain that stumpiness which marked his delineation of the human form at that time, and in the minor details, such as the representation of smoke and water, of trees, and in the landscape backgrounds. In the cut of Esther kneeling before Ahasuerus (No. 65, Esther ii.), the curtain at the back of the King’s throne is covered with fleurs-de-lis, as in the representation of the King in the other series, showing that when kingship was in question Holbein’s thoughts turned to Francis I, as the most notable monarch of his day. Many other instances of resemblance can be easily perceived when a close comparison of the two sets of designs is made.

[Sidenote: THEIR EXCELLENCE AS ILLUSTRATIONS]

Regarded as illustrations to the books of the Old Testament, these woodcuts are in all ways admirable. Holbein has brought to their making less of that imaginative power and biting humour which characterise the marvellous little pictures of the great Dance. He has concentrated his skill rather upon the faithful and accurate telling of these sacred stories as they are given in the text itself, and he does this with a perfect understanding of their strong dramatic power and their equally strong human interest. They are historical rather than spiritual in their conception, filled with the actual spirit of the narrative itself, to the exclusion of all else. He is revealed in them as a teller of stories of the first rank, with the power of seizing the most dramatic moment of each incident he depicts with unfailing instinct, and then representing it with a few unerring strokes of his pencil clearly and simply, with no over-elaboration of needless detail or overcrowding of characters. All that is absolutely necessary he gives, and no more; but within these narrow limits, a space only of a few square inches, he produced a series of designs admirable in composition, dignified and noble in conception, and yet free and dramatic in action.[488]

It is impossible within the limits of this book to attempt even a short description of these illustrations. Among the finest are Abraham sacrificing Isaac (No. 5), Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh (No. 9) (Pl. 69 (1)), Moses and the Burning Bush (No. 11), the Brazen Serpent (No. 25), the Submission of the Midianites (No. 26), Ruth and Boaz (No. 32) (Pl. 69 (2)), Hannah and Elkanah (No. 33), the Death of Jeroboam’s Son (No. 45), Elisha and the Children (No. 47), David before the Ark (No. 53), Solomon blessing the Faithful (No. 55), the Blinding of Tobit (No. 61), Job (No. 62), Esther and Ahasuerus (No. 65), Judith with the Head of Holofernes (No. 67) (Pl. 69 (3)), Daniel in the Lion’s Den (No. 84), Amos (No. 87) (Pl. 69 (4)), and Jonah under the Walls of Nineveh (No. 88). Considerable charm is added to a number of them by the beauty of the landscape or architectural background, put in with a few simple but masterly lines, as in the Burning Bush (No. 11), in which Moses kneels to unfasten his shoes, his sheep grazing round him; in Moses receiving the Commandments (No. 21) (Pl. 70 (1)), with the people at work in the vineyards, and in the distance a harvest waggon passing along a road towards a village on the plain; and in the walled city of Jerusalem with the Temple rising in its midst, in the Return from the Captivity (No. 58) (Pl. 70 (2)). Many others could be cited, as well as subjects containing dramatic battle scenes, recalling the masterly study of a fight of landsknechte in the Basel Gallery which has been described on a previous page.[489] This is particularly the case in the cut showing the Defeat of Sennacherib’s Army (No. 57). Other animated battle scenes occur in David learning of the Death of Saul (No. 37), and David triumphing over the Philistines (No. 38).

VOL. I., PLATE 69.

OLD TESTAMENT WOODCUTS

VOL. I., PLATE 70.

OLD TESTAMENT WOODCUTS

[Sidenote: THE OLD TESTAMENT ALPHABET]

Holbein also went to the Old Testament for the subjects of an Alphabet of twenty-four letters, engraved on metal, and of considerable size.[490] They begin with the Creation of Eve, and conclude with Jacob’s journey into Egypt. The letters N to Y are occupied with the story of Joseph, which is thus given in considerable detail. In the letter O, representing Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, the bed on which the latter sits has curtains ornamented with the French lilies.