Imagines Mortis
Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger (German, 1497/98-1543)
Printer: Joannes Frellonium, Lyon
Date: 1547
Dimensions:
Approx. 5 3/4 x 3 1/2 in.
Place of Origin: France (Lyon)
Classification: Books
Object number: 1925.14
Label Text:Though Hans Holbein's is best known today for realistically painted portraits of English nobles (see his painting of a Lady of the Cromwell Family in Gallery 15), in his own lifetime his most popular work was his woodcut book illustrations of “The Dance of Death.”
The Dance of Death theme originated in the early 1400s in France. Originally, the subject—a procession of the living and the dead (represented as cadavers and skeletons)—was shown in paintings in churches or on walls of burial grounds. Kings and queens, nobles, warriors, popes and priests, farmers, tradespeople, beggars and fools, mothers and children, and many others were shown walking among the already decomposed, carrying the message that death comes to all alike, the highest and the lowest, the pious and the sinful.
Holbein's version of the theme features an active and emotional representation of Death, sometimes leading, sometimes forcing, and sometimes even killing his charges as he prods them on to their final rest.
The Dance of Death theme originated in the early 1400s in France. Originally, the subject—a procession of the living and the dead (represented as cadavers and skeletons)—was shown in paintings in churches or on walls of burial grounds. Kings and queens, nobles, warriors, popes and priests, farmers, tradespeople, beggars and fools, mothers and children, and many others were shown walking among the already decomposed, carrying the message that death comes to all alike, the highest and the lowest, the pious and the sinful.
Holbein's version of the theme features an active and emotional representation of Death, sometimes leading, sometimes forcing, and sometimes even killing his charges as he prods them on to their final rest.
Not on view
In Collection(s)