Hans Holbein - Der Totentanz

Translated by Jan Düsterhöft

First Edition, limited to 250 Hand-numbered Copies.

 

Holbein drew the Bilder des Todes ('pictures of death') in Basel, in the last few years before 1526—the year in which the woodcutter Lützelburger died. After his death, his printing blocks, which could only be partially completed, ended up in the possession of his customer the publisher Melchior Trechsel in Lyon.
Maybe out of fear for the offence the candour, with which the pictures denounce social and political grievances, might cause, he published the woodblock printings only twelve years later. Under the title Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort.

Our edition is completed by the Kindergruppen and an Alphabet (Totentanzalphabet), all drawn by Holbein and cut by Lützelburger.

The cover design resembles the Amsler & Ruthard Edition, first published in Berlin 1922.