Les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort (Dance of Death) (1538)

Title page, "Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imaginées," with the Trechsel device (a winged caduceus-and-book emblem, "Usus me genuit"); imprint "A Lyon, Soubz l'escu de Cologne. M.D.XXXVIII" (f. 1r).

Death and the King — Death serves the King at his canopied, fleur-de-lis banquet table, heading the biblical text "Sicut & rex hodie est, & cras morietur" (Ecclesiastici X); the French quatrain "Ainsi qu'aujourd'huy il est Roy, / Demain sera en tombe close" below.

Death and the Bishop — Death leads away the mitred Bishop as his sheep scatter on the hillside, under the rising sun, illustrating "Percutiam pastorem, & dispergentur oves" (Mar. XIIII).

Death and the Rich Man — Death raids the hoard of the Rich Man, who recoils in his vaulted counting-house among strongboxes and coin, captioned "Stulte hac nocte repetunt animam tuam" (Lucae XII), with the verse "Ceste nuict la Mort te prendra."

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The first edition of Hans Holbein the Younger's celebrated Dance of Death, 41 tiny woodcuts designed c. 1523–26 and cut with extraordinary finesse by the blockcutter Hans Lützelburger. Printed by the Trechsel brothers for the Frellons, with a preface by Jean de Vauzelles. The most continuously reprinted and copied book woodcut cycle of the era.

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Title: Les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort (Dance of Death)
Printer: Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel
Place: Lyon
Year: 1538
Format: 4°
Language: French
Theme: illustration

Les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort (Dance of Death)

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