Abraham & Alexandre Girardet

Title page

Executioner

The title of this book is: »La danse des morts, pour servir de miroir, à la nature humaine«. The alert reader will notice, that one word is missing, namely "Basel".

The book was published in Le Locle, 85 kilometers southwest of Basel, and there is nothing neither on the front page nor within the texts to tell the reader that the subject is the famous dance of death in Basel.

Samuel Girardet settled down in Le Locle in 1758 to work as a book-trader and bookbinder. He fathered no less than ten children, and in particular Abraham (1764-1823) and Alexandre (1767-1836) at an early age turned out to have a talent for engravings. Their reputation was strengthened in 1779, when a Bible was published in Neuchâtel, »La sainte Bible, qui contient le Vieux et le Nouveau Testament«. This Bible contained 16 tables with 466 small Bible scenes created by Abraham. An impressive feat for a 14-15 years old boy.

One of the family's greatest successes was »La danse des morts«:

Pope

Emperour

Minstrel

Jew

Langlois writes something similar:

Many of the costumes are updated. Sears (quoted above) writes: »Curiously Burlesqued and Modernized«, while Warthin (bottom of page 89) writes: »burlesqued and modernized in a curious manner«. However, it is only citizens and nobility that have been modernized; ecclesiasticals and characters that no longer existed, such as jester, peddler and heathen, have been scrupulously copied.

Mayor

L'Art de bien vivre et de bien mourir

The year, 1788, is not the be found anywhere within the book, but the book was often (always?) bound together with a copy of the third edition of "L'Art de bien vivre et de bien mourir" (picture to the right), which has the year M DCC LXXXVIII.

Both Sears and Langlois agree that the cupper plates are copies of Matthäus Merian, and we could quote Douce(1), Maßmann(2) and Kurtz(3) for the same.

However, this is not correct. They are in fact copies of Jacques-Antony Chovin's engravings that in turn were copies after Matthäus Merian.

One clue to this is that Chovin followed the fashion of his time and often added landscapes in the background. Girardet did the same to an even higher degree, but in those cases where Chovin had already added a landscape, it was copied by Girardet. Take for instance the scene with the mayor to the left, where the landscape is identical to Chovin's plate right down to the swan in the lake, while there isn't any background on Merian's original plate.

Another clue is on the frontispiece. On the right side of Merian's original plate a black column of smoke dominates the sky. In Girardet's version (top, left of this page), there is no smoke but instead a leafy tree, just like on Chovin's plate.

A third, and even more obvious clue, is the French title, "Danse des Morts" instead of "Todten-Tantz", and all the French essays. The different issues of Merian's book were all in German, whereas Chovin's book was bilingual: German and French.

Let's take a closer look at those texts.

Empress

Ossuary

The short story is that Girardet has more or less taken everything that (1) was in French, and (2) did not mention the city of Basel:

• Chovin's book contained Merian's preface from 1649 in the original German as well as translated into French.

  Girardet skipped the first half, which described the murals history in Basel, but copied the last half, which listed eight ways in which dances of death were useful.

• In 1649 Merian included a description of the city Basel.

  The description had been written by Enea Silvio, the later Pope Pius II. It was translated into French by Chovin, but was not included by Girardet.

• Chovin had copied Merian's cupper plates and added a loose, French translation of the German verses.

  Girardet copied the plates and the French text.

• Chovin's book contained a French translation of four German hymns (canticles). These were included by Girardet.

• In 1649 Merian had added a section named »Erinnerung von der menschlichen Sterblichkeit, und Nichtigkeit aller irdischen Dingen«. The title seems to be inspired by a sentence in his preface: »Erinnerungen, so wol von der Menschlichen Sterblichkeit, Flüchtigkeit dieses gegenwärtigen Lebens, und Eitel-oder Nichtigkeit aller zeitlicher irdischer Dinge«. It is simply a long list of quotes from the Bible and from church fathers, grouped by subjects like death, resurrection and Judgment Day.

  Chovin refrained from translating this section into French. Girardet chose to supply the Bible verses in French, but left out the church fathers.

• Finally Girardet features a text that he did not take from Chovin: »Meditations sur la mort Tirées des Considérations sur les Oeuvres de Dieu par Mr. C.C. Sturm«.

  The German priest Christoph Christian Sturm (1740-1786) was prolific and his works were translated into many languages. According to Wikipedia, »his works on the Reflections on the Works of God in Nature even highly influenced Beethoven, amongst whose possessions was found a highly annotated copy of Sturm's work«.

All through the book, three words are conspicuous by their absence: "Basel", "Chovin" and "Merian".

Resources

• La danse des morts, pour servir de miroir, à la nature humaine : avec le costume dessiné à la moderne, et des vers à chaques figures (E-Rara)
• La danse des morts pour servir de miroir à la nature humaine: avec le costume dessiné à la moderne et des vers à chaques figures (Google Books)

Girardet, 1786

Ossuary

Pope

Emperor

Empress

Minstrel

Mayor

Executioner

Jew

Bien Mourir

Further information

• Matthäus Merian
• Jacques-Antony Chovin's engravings

Footnotes: (1) (2) (3)

Dances of death Basel Girardet