Imagines Mortis

Artist Hans Holbein the Younger (German, 1497/98-1543)

Printer Joannes Frellonium, Lyon

Place of OriginFrance (Lyon)

Date1547

DimensionsApprox. 5 3/4 x 3 1/2 in.

ClassificationBooks

Object number

1925.14

Not on View

Label TextThough 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.Published ReferencesDackerman, Susan, editor, Painted Prints: The Revelation of Color in Northern Renaissance & Baroque Engravings, Etchings, and Woodcuts, The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2002, cat. 33 [1538 edition]Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Looks Good on Paper: Masterworks and Favorites, Oct. 10, 2014-Jan. 11, 2015.