Oeuvre de Jean Holbein: ou Recueil de Gravures d’apres les Plus Beaux Ouvrages de ce Fameux Peintre

Fine delicate engravings by Chretien de Mechel or Christian von Mechel (and Bartholomaus Hubner) after works by the Renaissance master Hans Holbein.

Incomplete copy of the first edition of these suites of engravings and sepia aquatints.

Three complete suites (Dance of Death*, the Passion of Christ and Portraits), plus several additional plates, altogether 40 engraved plates and two engraved vignettes.

Title page, 14 pages of descriptive text to the Triumph of Death with two engraved vignettes, 47 engravings on 12 plates of the Triumph of Death (Le Triomphe de la Mort) and two plates entitled Triumph of Wealth (Triumphus Divitiarum) and Triumph of Poverty (Triumphus Paupertatus); frontispiece and 12 plates to The Passion of Our Lord (La Passion de Notre Seigneur); 2 double-page fold-out engravings A Scene of the Insurrection of the Peasants and The Prophet Samuel Declared to Saul; 1 plate of the costume of a young woman of Basel from Costumes d'hommes et de femmes du seizième siècle; and 10 plates of Portraits.

*According to the exhaustive Dance of Death website dodedans.com, Mechel copied drawings made by the very young Peter Paul Rubens rather than the original Holbein woodcuts.

Portraits engraved by Bartholomaus Hubner include a self-portrait of the artist Hans Holbein, Holbein's wife Elsbeth with their children Philipp and Katharina, burgermeister of Basel Jakob Meyer, Meyer's second wife Dorothea (mistakenly titled with name of first wife Anna Scheckenpurlin), Magdalena Offenburg as Greek courtesan Lais of Corinth and Roman classical goddess Venus, humanist philosopher Erasmus, scholar Bonifacius Amerbach, publisher Johann Froben and chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More (lacking the two plates of More's family as usual).

Leather spine scuffed, gilt title bright, marble boards scratched and torn with loss of paper to front corners, book block splitting with some signatures proud, but good impressions of all plates, with scattered peripheral foxing, toning and finger smudges.