Creation of Eve
The Creation
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Holbein: Creation (August 1524)
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olbein lets his dance start with Creation, Temptation and Fall
and The Expulsion from Paradise — just as he ends it with The Last Judgment.
The scenes from The Old Testament are not included in the Holbein's dance of death alphabet,
but back in 1524 Holbein had designed an alphabet with themes from the book of Genesis cut in metal (picture to the right).
Bible from 1538 with The Creation by Holbein
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1547: Icones Historiarum Veteris Testamenti
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olbein's woodcut of the Creation was used to
illustrate a Bible published by the Trechsel brothers in 1538 — i.e. same publisher and same
year as the first publication of Holbein's dance of death.
Still in 1538, the illustrations for this Bible was published separately
under the name Historiarum veteris instrumenti Icones ad vivum expressae. The first 4 scenes from the dance of death were included here.
Not just the Creation, but also
Temptation and Fall,
the Expulsion from Paradise and
Life After the Fall
(the picture to the right shows a later edition).
Crack in later editions
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After 1542 the prints show a vertical crack in the middle that goes right through God's face (picture to the right).
This is visible already in the Spanish version of the Bible images,
"Retratos o tablas de las Historias del Testamento Viejo", from 1543,
and it is present in the editions of the dance of death from 1545 and 1547.
However, in the English version of the Bible pictures,
"The Images of the old testament", 1549, the crack has disappeared again,
and it's also gone from the Italian version of the dance of death, "Simolachri" from the same year.
However, the crack returns in the 1554 edition and most copes from the 1562 edition.
Douce believes that the crack had been closed temporarily by "cramping":
»[…] with the exception of those in Italian of 1549 and in the Bible of 1549 in which the crack appears to have been closed probably by cramping but the block again separated afterwards« (The dance of death exhibited, page 105).
Variations: Aldegrever makes a free interpretation as usual.
On the other hand, he's got
a picture in his mini-series about Adam and Eve,
that looks much like Holbein's.
Eberhard Kieser copies Aldegrever.
Birckmann makes a free interpretation, and Valvasor copies Birckmann.
Deuchar and Bewick from Protestant Britain didn't like the picture of God as a bishop and have their own versions without God.
Anderson's publisher in the U.S.A. deliberately skipped this picture.
Various Artists
Pine oc Død (1587)
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Dances of death
Holbein's dance of death
Creation
