De doodt vermaskert
ublished in Antwerp with text by Geeraerdt van Wolsschaten
(1603 - 1660).
The two editions contain very different illustrations.
The 1654 Edition
1654-edition, frontispiece.
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The physician. The bottom, left corner bears the mark "SA".
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his book starts with a well executed fronticpiece (to the left).
The book itself consists of 18 chapters, and the title promises
that these 18 chapters are "adorned by the clever pictures by the famous painter Hans Holbein":
»verciert met de constighe Belden van den vermaerden Schilder Hans Holbeen«.
Most of these 18 woodcuts are very cleverly and detailed executed
and this has led many experts to believe that they were
Holbein's original woodcuts.
Francis Douce
divides them into 14 genuine Holbein-woodcuts and 4 other,
child,
pope,
emperor
and
countess,
which he calls »copies, and very badly engraved«.(1)
It's hard to see why he considers
child
to be "very badly engraved".
The woodcuts can be divided in four groups:
Six woodcuts are marked with 
,
viz.
three children,
peddler, judge, astrologer, monk and physician (picture to the right).
Two woodcuts have been marked with
a little woodcutter's mark in the shape of a woodcutter's knife: 
.
These are the
child
and
the old man.
Seven woodcuts are not marked:
Noblewoman, sailor, beggar, abbess, priest, abbot and duke.
Three woodcuts are of a lower quality
(although not as bad as Douce indicates):
pope,
emperor
and
countess.
It is obvious that they are copies since they have been laterally inversed.
The physician. Original block
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As mentioned, six of the woodcuts have been marked with
(see the physician to the right).
This mark is a combined S and A, and it is very reminiscent of the mark
on some of the copies of Holbein published
by Birckmann's heirs.
When reading Douce
one gets the impression that he thinks it was the same person,
who first cut the woodcuts for Birckmann (that Douce loathed) in 1555,
and who reappeared in 1654 to add his mark to the genuine Holbein-woodcuts.
Douce first writes (page 109):
»XI. In 1654 a Dutch work appeared with the following
title, "De Doodt vermaskert met swerelts ydelheyt
afghedaen […]
The blocks of the
originals appear to have fallen into the hands of an
artist, who probably resided at Antwerp, and several of
them have his mark, 
,
concerning which more will
be said under one of the ensuing articles«.
And on page 113 he returns, as promised, to this artist
when expounding on Birckmann:
»V. "Imagines Mortis, his accesserunt epigrammata
è Gallico idiomate à Georgio Æmylio in Latinum translata,
&c. Coloniæ apud hæredes Arnoldi Birckmanni,
anno 1555. […] The cuts are by the artist mentioned
in No. IX. of those originals, whose mark is
which is here found on five of them«.
A close-up of the original woodblock.
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Warthin(2) seems to agree with Douce —
both concerning the number of genuine woodcuts and the artist (page 71):
»In 1654 under the title "De Doodt vermaskert"
[…] This contained 18 woodcuts, 14 of which were the original blocks retouched,
preserved for more than a century after their first use.
The other 4 engravings were very poor copies. As 7 of these blocks had the monogram as
(thought to be Ant. Sylvius), they probably were blocks used for the Birkmann edition of 1555.«
In spite of this consensus among experts, it still sounds very unlikely that the man,
who had created his own Holbein-copies in Cologne in 1555
should reappear in Antwerp a 100 years later in 1654
to add his mark on the genuine (so Douce thought) Holbein-cuts.
And where does the enter into it?
Apart from the problem that the man would have been over 100 years old, adding details to a woodcut is a painstaking process.
It's easy to add signatures to Hollar's copper plates,
but a woodcutter cuts details away. If one wanted to add a printer's mark
it would entail drilling a hole into the block, hammering a dowel into it, and then cutting a
into the dowel.
Detail of the peddler.
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This hardly sounds credible, and we are in the fortunate situation that one of these blocks has survived,
making it easier to evaluate the claim. The picture to the right shows
how the "sa" is an integral part of the block.
The woodcuts have been copied very skillfully and detailed, and for this reason experts like Douce and Warthin have been mistaken.
If one looks at the images one by one, in natural size, and crabbed print, one can easily confound them.
If on the other hand the images are enlarged and switched back and forth, lots of little differences will appear.
On the image to the left
the peddler
is compared with
Holbein's original.
One can see how the musical instrument (a marine trumpet) changes angle and breadth,
and how the number of lines in the hatching vary.
It is revealing that there are more hatching-lines in the version from 1654,
even though (as mentioned) it is very cumbersome to add details to a woodcut.
The 1698 Edition
Peddler
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Countess ("De Ionghe Vrijster")
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n the 1698-edition all the woodcuts were gone: The Holben-copies and the frontispiece.
Instead Geeraerdt van Wolsschaten's text was illustrated with new copperplates.
There's not much to say about the copper plates.
They are quite bland, and one wonders what happened to the old woodcuts.
The picture of the peddler (to the left) has been combined with the background from the soldier.
External Link
Frontispiece
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De Doodt vermaskert
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De Doodt vermaskert
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De Doodt vermaskert
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Other interpreters of Holbein's dance of death
The woodcuts in De Doodt vermaskert look very much like genuine Holbein.
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Some of the woodcuts published by Birckmann's heirs are marked with "SA"
(see bottom, right corner).
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Footnotes:
(1)
(2)
Francis Douce,
The Dance of Death exhibited in elegant engravings on wood with a dissertation […], 1833, p. 109-110:
»This edition
contains eighteen cuts, among which the following subjects
are from the original blocks. 1. Three boys. 2.
The married couple. 3. The pedlar. 4. The shipwreck.
5. The beggar. 6. The corrupt judge. 7. The astrologer.
8. The old man. 9. The physician. 10. The priest
with the eucharist. 11. The monk. 12. The abbess.
13. The abbot. 14. The duke. Four others, viz. the
child, the emperor, the countess, and the pope, are
copies, and very badly engraved«.
Aldred Scott Warthin: The physician of the dance of death:
a historical study of the evolution of the dance of death mythus in art, 1931.
Dances of death
Holbein's dance of death
Doodt vermaskert
on some of the copies of Holbein published
by Birckmann's heirs.
