The front page of the 1796-edition.
For details, click here and here.
Georg Scharffenberg's signature with year
his book may be the source of one of the most persistent (and wrong) myths: That Holbein should have been the artist
behind Basel's dance of death. Let it be said at once: The dance of death in Basel was painted decades before Holbein was born,
and there are no indications anywhere that Holbein should have had anything to do with neither
repairs nor improvements.
The misleading starts with the title,
»Der Todten-Tantz, wie derselbe in der weitberühmten Stadt Basel, als ein Spiegel menschlicher Beschaffenheit,
gantz künstlich mit lebendigen Farben gemahlet, nicht ohne nützliche Verwunderung zu sehen ist«
(picture to the left).
The fact is that
most of the pictures are more or less exact copies of Holbein's dance of death, but with the
text from Basel's dance of death.
Only a few of the pictures have anything to do with the dance of death in Basel, and
two or three of the pictures
are neither from Basel nor by Holbein.
Hans Hugo Kluber, dead 1578
The book is evidently a hybrid. A single one of the woodcuts (the nun from Basel's dance of death) bears the initials DR.
Most of the others bear the initials GS, which are presumed to stand for Georg Scharffenberg (ca. 1530 - ca. 1607).
A single of them, the picture of the Expulsion, also bears the year 1576
(picture to the right).
Another one of the pictures bear the year 1578: This picture depicts
the painter Hans Kluber, who had renovated Basel's dance of death in 1568, and who had
painted himself and his family at the end of the dance.
The picture of the Kluber Family is also included in the book, and the sub-title to the picture informs us
that Hans Kluber died 7th February 1578.
A book from ca. 1578 would be our oldest witness to Basel's dance of death,
but as already mentioned, most of the pictures are copies of Holbein, and besides,
Scharffenberg's copies are very inaccurate.
We can't use Scharffenberg as a witness to anything.
Take for instance Scharffenberg's picture
of the pope. Scharffenberg has evidently spliced it together with Amman's
»Eygentliche Beschreibung aller Stände auff Erden« from 1568.
The only elements Scharffenberg has used from Holbein's picture are the long crosses and Death disguised as a cardinal.
Hans Holbein 1538
Jobst Amman 1568
Scharffenberg 1578
Another example is
the blind man. In Holbein's woodcut, Death carefully leads the blind man by holding his stick.
It's quite different in Basel's dance of death, where Death is malicious and cuts the string to the little guide dog.
Scharffenberg combines these two pictures.
Holbein
Basel's dance of death: Blind Man
Scharffenberg
A third example is the noblewoman. Holbein lets Death beat the drum in front of the newlywed couple.
The picture of Death drumming is one Holbein has copied from Basel's dance of death
(see the page about the noblewoman for details),
but Scharffenberg "improves" the picture by replacing the drum with a strapped-on
skull — an idea he had taken from Basel's dance of death.
Holbein
Basel's dance of death: Pope
Scharffenberg
Title page from 1843
Incredibly enough, the book was reprinted, using the samme woodcuts, for several centuries,
which contributed to the misunderstanding about Holbein and Basel's dance of death.
The thousands of tourists, who bought the book throughout centuries
after a visit to the Dominican church in Basel, must have been puzzled, when they returned home and opened the book.
Some of the later issues are lithographic reproductions
with German and French texts on the left page-opening.
The present site displays a mixture of woodcuts and lithographs.
Resources
The main part of the pictures on this site are taken from various Ebay-auctions
his book may be the source of one of the most persistent (and wrong) myths: That Holbein should have been the artist
behind Basel's dance of death. Let it be said at once: The dance of death in Basel was painted decades before Holbein was born,
and there are no indications anywhere that Holbein should have had anything to do with neither
repairs nor improvements.
Dances of death
Holbein
