Adam and Eve

Frölich 1588, Adam & Eve

The dance ends with a picture of Adam and Eve. Together with the picture comes a long sermon about the Fall, the Original Sin and Christ as the Great Redeemer.

With this text Hans Kluber was able to remove the mural from its Catholic roots and instead turn it into Protestant propaganda. In that way Kluber also made it possible for the mural to survive the changing tastes and fashions for a few more centuries.

The position and size of this scene is hard to figure out. Our oldest sources, i.e. Ludwig Iselin's manuscript from 1577, Der Todendantz and the 1581-edition of Frölich's book all have the complete text of the dance of death itself, but no text for Adam & Eve. In the same way Adam & Eve are not included in the coloured gouaches from ca. 1600 either.

Frölich also includes a woodcut of the expulsion from Paradise.

However, Frölich's illustrated 1588-edition, Zwen Todentäntz, does have a picture (to the left), which is reminiscent of Merian's. But one must recall that most of the woodcuts in Frölich's 1588-edition were (bad) copies of Holbein's dance of death produced 12 years before, in 1576, and that Frölich used them to illustrate the dances of death in Basel and Bern. Frölich's book also contained woodcuts of robber, gambler, boozer, sailor, nun and the expulsion from Paradise. Thus the picture doesn't prove that there has been an Adam & Eve in Basel in 1588.

In this book from 1588 Adam & Eve are the first to appear (even though they were the last on the mural in Basel) and the text is not included. Instead this illustration is used to introduce the dance of death:

ADAM und EVA durch den Fall,
  In was noht bracht uns Menschen all,
Werden ordenlich in Latein,
  Und Teutsche Verss erklären sein.

Then follows a woodcut of the Expulsion, where the text (»Von den Teuffels vergifften Zung […]«) is from Bern.

In Merians copperplates, Adam & Eve are included in all editions, from 1621 and later. The picture of Adam & Eve (above) is not broader than the rest of the plates in the series, and Adam & Eve are placed after the painter and his wife.

Feyerabend 1806, Adam & Eve

In contrast, Büchel makes an reproduction where Adam and Eve are far broader the rest of the scenes(1) and Büchel informs us that the painter and his family have been removed during a later restoration, and that the paradise-scene has been broadened to fill up the space.(2)

Unfortunately I haven't seen Büchel's watercolour myself, but let us instead look at Feyerabend's watercolour (to the right). Feyerabend painted his watercolour in 1806, i.e. the year after the wall with the mural was demolished. He uses Merian's copperplates for support and includes the painter and his wife (in the same wrong sequence as Merian).

Precisely when it comes to Adam & Eve, Feyerabend deviates markedly from Merian: First comes the unicorn, then an eagle, then Adam & Eve around a small tree with a parrot, then the Tree of Knowledge with serpent and finally a lion. Presumably Feyerabend in 1806, the year after the mural was destroyed, still had the painting fresh in memory. His painting looks exactly like the way Burckhardt-Biederman(1) describes Büchel's painting.

Burckhardt-Biederman suggests this model over the different renovations:

The problem with this model is that it doesn't take the child into account. Burckhardt-Biederman hides this by writing "Painter's family", but the fact is that all our witnesses: Ludwig Iselin's manuscript from 1577, Der Todendantz, the gouaches and Frölich gives us one dialogue for the child and another for the mother / paintress. The model doesn't explain very well either, how the child's dialogue still survives in Merian's book from 1621, and it offers no explanation at all for, how a picture book with gouaches from 1600 (which was unknown to Burckhardt-Biederman) can contain a picture of the child.

Dr. Uli Wunderlich(3) instead suggest this model:

The problem with Wunderlich's model is that Frölich places the Turk at the very end of the dance — first the child, then the child's mother, then the painter and finally the Turk. Frölich's book finishes with the Turk's dialogue, and then tells an imaginary "satyr": »Hiemit die Reüm des Todtentanz, O Satyre sich enden gantz« (= "Hereby, oh Satyr, the rhymes of the dance of death ends totally").

The same thing is true for Der Todendantz and for Ludwig Iselin's manuscript from 1577. They all agree in placing the Turk at the end - after the painter.

Merian doesn't know anything about a Turk, but he places Adam & Eve after the painter and his family. It should be noted that Merian places the painter before the painter's wife, which is an obvious error, and that his 1621-edition is a total jumble. But we still know that Adam & Eve must be the last in the dance, because they are followed by a long, boring sermon - the sheer size of which proves that the text couldn't have been inside the dance of death.

Wunderlich's model is thus contradicted by all our witnesses: Frölich, Der Todendantz, Iselin and Merian.

What can we conclude then? Not much. Logically the painter should be the very last dancer, looking back and contemplating his work. The painter's dialogue is much longer than the others, so there hasn't been much room for the next dancer. Nonetheless all our oldest witnesses agree that the dance ended with child, mother, painter and Turk. Thus the Turk must have been a later addition than the painter, which is at odds with the fact that there was only 9 years from Hans Kluber's renovation in 1568 to Iselin's manuscript from 1577. This leads to the bold conclusion that there was a painter in the dance long before Kluber's renovation, and that Klauber has simply replaced the name of this painter with his own.

In the same way all our witnesses agree that there wasn't a scene with Adam & Eve. The first time they appear is in Frölich's 1588-edition, but here they are placed in the start of the dance and without the long text that accompanies them in Merian's edition. On the other hand, there's no denying a certain similarity between Frölich's woodcut og Merian's etching (the unicorn and the placement of Adam's hand), which leads to another bold conclusion, namely that it was Frölich's woodcut, that inspired Bock to add this scene on the mural during the restauration in 1616.

Here follows the text from the picture and the following plate:

Footnotes: (1) (2) (3) (4)

Dances of death Basel Adam and Eve