Dresden's dance of death, The Artist

The dance at Georgenschloss is interrupted by the duke and his wife

George the Bearded. The man following may be George's son Friedrich.

It is not unusual for medieval works of art, that the creator is anonymous, while the donor who paid for the work is known.

This also applies in Dresden, where the name of the castle, Georgenschloss and the gate Georgentor / Georgenbau was named after Duke George of Saxony. The dance is interrupted by portraits of the Duke and his (late) wife Barbara, and for good measure, George the Bearded participates in the dance himself — perhaps followed by his son (pictured right).

The artist, on the other hand, is more uncertain. There have even been hypotheses that the frieze was not originally made for the castle, but for the bridge over the Elbe river.

Stonemason / Steynmetz

The favorable reader will see that this is similar to the situation in Lübeck, where one art historian cautiously suggested that Lübeck's dance of death might have been painted by Bernd Notke, after which the next generation of art historians stood ready to ascribe all works of art in the Baltic Area to this "Michelangelo of the North".

It started the same way in Dresden. In 1784 Johann Christian Hasche wrote about various masters, some of whom were particularly well known:

Noch berühmter waren † Schicketanz, † Voigt, † Trost, † Lynar und † Dehne. Ersterer, der 1527 Brückenwerkmeister und Steinmetz der Kreutzkirche war, hat wahrscheinlich 1520 die Hofmühle, 1534 Herzog Georgens Schloß und den für damalige Zeiten prächtigen Todentanz, 27 steinerne Figuren in Basrelief, doch unter Direktion Hans v. Dehnen, Rothfelser genannt, erbaut.

Johann Christian Hasche, Magazin der Sächsische Geschichte, 1784, page 69

The dance should thus have been created by a Master Schicketanz, while the building project itself was led by Hans v. Dehnen called Rothfelser. Hasche does not offer any explanations, but the names got stuck.

Close to 100 years later, Gurlitt wrote a dissertation on the castle in Dresden.

Builder / Baumeister

  Für den "bawmeister" des Georgenthores sieht man mit Weck den Hans von Dehn-Rothfelser an. Wir werden auf diesen Mann noch zurückzukommen haben. Urkundlich ist sein Name nirgends mit dem Bau in Verbindung gefunden worden

Cornelius Gurlitt, Das Königliche Schloß zu Dresden und seine Erbauer, 1878, page 6

Gurlitt wrote that there were no documents behind the claim, but that they originated with Weck, that is, the same chronicler who gives us pictures of the castle and of the dance:

But no such thing can be found in Weck's chronicle. The closest we get to "Rothfelser" and "Dehn" is when Weck mentions the red deer and fallow deer in the area. "Rothe= und Dahnhirsche".(1)

Gurlitt continues:

Sculptor / Bildhauer

  Neben ihm wird als Schöpfer des bildhauerischen Schmuckes der Steinmetz Schickentantz erwähnt; er ist es wohl der die "polirten Steine aushaut".

  Hans Schickentantz, Schicktantz, Schigtantz oder Schigkentancz kommt in den Dresdner Stadtrechnungen oft vor. […]

Cornelius Gurlitt, same page

Schickentantz is mentioned "Neben ihm", i.e. in the same place where Gurlitt has read about Dehn-Rothfelser, but Weck has nothing to say about Hans Schickentantz either. He gladly writes about red deer and fallow deer and about a five-legged deer that was killed by Prince-Elector Johann Georg (see previous footnote), but nothing about the artist behind the dance of death.

But by now, Weck had been named as the source of that claim and it was repeated by Flechsig: »Als Schöpfer des Totentanzes nennt der Chronist Weck den Dresdener Steinmetzen Hans Schickentanz. Es liegt kein Grund vor, diese Angabe zu bezweifeln«.(2)

Most art books before 1924 repeat the name, Schickentanz, but they remember to note the lack of documentation. In 1924, Sponsel wrote an article titled »Flötner-Studien«, in which he sketched to story that has just been described.(3)

The town hall in Oschatz

In 1925, Fritz Fichtner wrote an article in "Der Dresdner Anzeiger" about the stonemasons and builders of Dresden. One of Fichtner's points was that Hans Schickentanz worked only as a stonemason, and therefore could not be the sculptor who had created the dance of death.

A stonemason builds houses, churches, castles, bridges and roads, and if he is particularly skilful, he may function as a "Baumeister," the builder/architect who has the overall responsibility for the entire project (pictures to the left). The artistic decoration itself, on the other hand, must be done by a sculptor, which precludes Schickentanz. Incidentally, no works by Schickentanz have been identified after 1528, so he may not even have been alive when the castle was built.

The shields at the back of the stairs.

As for the dance of death, Fichtner pointed to the town hall stairs in Oschatz (pictured left). It is decorated in the same style as the dance of death and at the top there are again portraits of Duke George and Barbara.

In this case, the name of the builder, Bastian Kramer, is documented. In the winter of 1537, the leading builder of the town hall was »Meister Bastian v(nseres) g(nädigen) H(errn) Baumeister vertzert vnd vom Rathe auß Dresden gelost«. I.e.: Builder for our graceful lord (Duke George).

On the back of the stairs is the year 1538, i.e. shortly after the castle in Dresden was completed. In the left half (the right half of the drawing) is a small shield with a master's mark, D.K. (should have been B.K.) for Bastian Kramer, but on the right side (the left half of the drawing) is another master's mark: C.W. The artist is Christoph Walther I (not to be confused with Christoph Walther II, III and IV).

Fichtner's article has been digitized here: Dresdner Steinmetzen und Baumeister des 16. Jahrhunderts.

C.W.

The argument convinced the historian Walter Hentschel, who already the following year in the book "Sächsische Plastik um 1500" included a photo of a piece of the Dance of Death along with other works by Christoph Walther. In the comments he wrote: »Tafel 97: Totentanz […] Christoph Walther, um 1535. Die Zuweisung an Walther statt an den damals wohl schon verstorbenen Baumeister Schickentanz ergibt sich aus der Übereinstimmung mit den bezeichneten Skulpturen an der Oschatzer Rathaustreppe (1538)«.(4)

In 1931, Hentschel himself wrote an article in "Der Dresdner Anzeiger": »Christoph Walther (I), Der Meister des Dresdner Totentanzes«. In 1966, he published his major work, "Dresdner Bildhauer des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts", where he compares the dance frieze with other works provably created by Christoph Walther I. Ever since then, the name Christoph Walther has been undisputed.

 

This was the last chapter in the series about Dresden's dance of death, unless you want to read Fichtner's article: Dresdner Steinmetzen und Baumeister des 16. Jahrhunderts. .

The previous chapter was about each of the dancers.

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

Dances of death Dresden The artist