Ein Anatomischer Totentanz.

HASSELWANDER, Albert. Ein Anatomischer Totentanz. 27, [1] pp. Illustrated with 50 collotype plates. Small 4to., 220 x 175 mm, bound in original publisher's half vellum over brown boards. Munich: J.F. Bergmann, 1926. Only Edition of this photographic anomaly, offering an "Anatomical Dance of Death," prepared for the use of artists, with a long preface on the illustrated history of the "Dance of Death" by Hasselwander. There are 25 photographic plates of dramatically positioned nudes, each one accompanied by 25 photographs on the facing plate capturing their skeletal "death" portrait, in mirror position. Ein Anatomischer Totentanz, prepared in collaboration with the painter Fritz Stell, is far closer to a photographic "Dance of Death" than a medical work on the musculo-skeletal system. Dr. Albert Hasselwander (1877- 1954) was a professor of Anatomy at the University of Erlangen, Germany and is best known today for his publications Atlas der Anatomie Menschlichen Körpers in Röntgenbild, (1926) and Handbuch der Anatomie des Kindes (1938). Viewed artistically, the contrast of the nude photographs with their corresponding skeletons elicits an amusing but also disturbing response in the onlooker. Certainly, "artistic instruction" was the intention of the author Hasselwander, and yet, beyond the moralistic message inherent in Dance of Death works, Ein Anatomischer Totentanz evokes a Weimar Republic-like luridness and kinky voyeurism. In excellent condition, previous owner's stamp on front free endpaper. …