Holbein's Dagger sheath

Illustration from "The Dance of death exhibited . ."

Holbein's first attempt with dances of death was a pen and wash drawing of a dagger sheath. The sheath itself was engraved by Urs Graf and is marked with the year 1521.

A purist might say that the sheath is Holbein's only dance of death, since his dance of death alphabet and great dance of death really belong to the genre of emblem books.

Holbein has used his dagger sheath as inspiration for his later works, the dance of death alphabet (see initials C, D, I, K and O) and Holbein's great dance of death (see monk and soldier).

There are actually two versions of this drawing - one in Berliner Bauakademie and one in Basler Kunstsammlung. The one in Basel is believed to be an (inferior) copy of the one in Berlin.(1).

The drawing in Berliner Bauakademie used to be owned by Mechel, who engraved a copy in copper along with his copies of Rubens' copies of Holbein (see pictures to the left and right). The picture further up on this page is from Francis Douce's book Holbein's Dance of Death, Exhibited in Elegant Engravings on Wood. It appears to be a woodcut based on Mechel's copperplates.

The drawing must have been popular: to this day there's a type of daggers called Holbein daggers (in German: Holbeindolch).

Further information:

(1) I'm merely quoting from "Holbein's Totentanz und seine Vorbilder" by Alexander Goette, 1897. The author spends 3 pages arguing why one drawing is inferior to the other.