The Dance of Death: in Painting and in Print

A very good copy of a scarce edition of the Dance of Death.

Complete with handcoloured woodcut frontispiece and 10 other woodcuts by an unknown artist (perhaps Wenceslaus Hollar).

One of "400 copies plain" from an edition of 460 (60 copies were issued with handcolour).

The 11 subjects are: The Count (handcoloured), The Pope Crowning an Emperor, Emperor, Empress, Queen, Bishop, Abbess, Canoness, Soldier, Physician and Preacher.

According to the author, "the blocks illustrating this work are a series found in a northern printing office many years ago. They seem to be of considerable age." Elsewhere, he identifies the owner to be Joseph Temple, a Hull printer and newspaper publisher.

According to the exhaustive Dance of Death website dodedans.com, the woodcuts here follow the 1816 re-issue of Wenceslaus Hollar's reworking of Arnold Birckmann's copies of Holbein's woodcuts. The engravings lack any artist's initials or signatures.

Thomas Tindall Wildridge (1858-1928) was a librarian, antiquarian, artist and author. Among his many books are The Misereres of Beverley Minster 1879, Handbook to the Hull and Withernsea Railway 1884, Some Armorial Bearings 1886, The Grotesque in Church Art 1900, The Arms of the Town of Kingston upon Hull 1887, etc.

Paper-covered boards with gilt title on spine, gilt title and and dancing skeleton on front board, boards stained and chipped, blue endpapers showing signs of tape removal (ex library book?). Interior with a few finger smudges, pencil note to half title, but woodcuts clean and sharp.