Tindall Wildridge (1887)
Decoration from Tindall Wildridge's book
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The cover
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small book about dances of death, "The Dance of Death in painting and in print" —
illustrated with 11 woodcuts. Published by Tindall Wildridge in 1887.
The book can be seen in detail at The Wenceslaus Hollar Digital Collection (see link below),
where the woodcuts are attributed to John Bewick.
It's a mistake to claim the blocks were cut by Bewick, because:
- Wildridge nowhere makes the claim that the cuts were made by Bewick
- John Bewick copies Holbein's woodcuts rather closely, whereas this unknown artists follows
the deviations that were invented
by Arnold Birckmann and later imitated by
Wenceslaus Hollar and David Deuchar.
- Wildridge mentions that Bewick's wood-blocks were destroyed by fire in 1825.(1)
This would have made it a tad difficult to employ them in 1887.
- Wildridge states clearly (p. 37) that the blocks
»are a series found in a northern printing office many years ago«
and that they
»seem to be of considerable age«.
Has this unknown artist then copied
Birckmann, Hollar or Deuchar? The answer is that the artist
has copied the 1816-edition of Hollar,
where the well-worn copperplates had been "rebitten".
The plate where this is most apparent is the bishop
because the artist, who refreshed Hollar's plates added faces
on the sun and its mirror image.
Hollar: the sun mirrored in the lake
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Deuchar copies Hollar
(shown laterally inversed)
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Hollar 1816 new and improved. The suns have faces
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Unknown artist copies the "improved" image with faces
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Another example is the queen. The heavy-handed "renovation" of Hollar's plates
meant that the decoration on the pillars had disappeared:
Hollar: Pillars with projections
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Hollar 1816:
Pillars are starkly simplified
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Unknown artist:
The same simplified pillars.
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A third example is the soldier. At the renovation in 1816 vertical lines were added at the top of the picture,
and these are copied by the unknown artist:
Hollar: no vertical lines
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Hollar 1816: vertical lines
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Unknown artist: vertical lines
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It is rather clear then, that the artist has copied
the 1816-edition of Hollar.
One might sense a little doubt when it comes to the preacher,
because Death holds a small bone in his hand, just like with Deuchar.
But this similarity is in fact caused by the artist copying the 1816 edition of Hollar.
The letter-press for this edition was copied from Mechel's
etchings, where Death has a large bone in his hand.
That's why the description to this picture says
»Death, who is behind him with a stole about his
neck, holds over his head the bone of a dead body«.
The unknown artist, Deuchar and "Mr. Bewick" have all added a bone
as demanded by the description,
but all three of them place the hand and bone differently.
In contrast the hourglass shows us that the artist has copied Hollar:
Hollar has rendered the hourglass so indistinctly that Deuchar has skipped it.
In the 1816-edition, the hourglass has all but disappeared and looks more like some sort of buckle
on the stole that Death is wearing.
And verily, the unknown artist has copied this "buckle",
which he couldn't have found by Deuchar.
Birckmann: Empty hands, distinct hourglass
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Hollar: Empty hands, fairly distinct hourglass
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Deuchar: A small bone, no hourglass
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Hollar 1816: Empty hands, very indistinct hourglass
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Unknown artist: A small bone, indistinct hourglass
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Resources
Decoration
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Other interpreters of Holbein's dance of death
Hollar 1816: When Death attacks the soldier with a giant dart (rather than a bone), we know
that we are dealing with copies of Birckmann, Hollar or Deuchar.
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Hollar 1816: The bishop and the two suns.
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Footnotes:
(1)
»
According to Hugo they were destroyed by fire shortly after the
publication of 1825« (page 32).
The right year is probably 1803, and it seems that
Tindall Wildridge has conflated the genuine Bewick with
with the fake Bewick that Wright published in the Portfolio in 1825:
»Mr. Wright declares, in connection with these cuts, that "expense is an object
which is never regarded in supporting the character of the Portfolio"«.
However this doesn't affect my argument: that Wildridge
is not trying to pass the 11 woodcuts off as genuine Bewick.
Dances of death
Holbein's dance of death
Tindall Wildridge
