The Dance of Death (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Hans Holbein

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1527895637 ISBN 13: 9781527895638

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2018

Synopsis

Excerpt from The Dance of Death

From the date of the editio princeps it might be supposed that the designs were executed at or about 1 5 3 8 - the year of its publication. But The Artist. This is not the case; and there is good evi dence that they were not only designed but actuallv 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 15 38, 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 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 1 we get a date before which both the woodcuts.

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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1527895637
• ISBN 13: 9781527895638
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 124