Abbot Nobleman

 
Abbess  
 

The Abbess

Tarot card: The Fool
The World's oldest tarot deck: The Fool
Holbein's Bible illiustrations
Holbein: The Fool (Psalm 53,2)

D eath drags the abbess away, while she holds on to her rosary and her abbess-staff. Inside the monastery, one of the nuns are screaming.

Some commentators think, Death is draped with flags! Personally I believe they are long feathers. It's rather normal that fools have long feathers in their heads. See the tarot card to the left from the world's oldest tarot deck, Visconti-Sforza — or see the picture that Holbein made for The Old Testament (to the right).

Death is dressed like a fool — just like the Death that drags the queen away.

Variations: Birckmann adds a window, which is partially hidden behind Deaths head. Hollar og Deuchar copies the window.

Holbein's Imagines Mortis: Abbess
Les Simulachres (1538)
Vogtherr 1544: Abbess
Vogtherr (1544)
Birckmann 1555: Abbess
Birckmann (1555)
Eberhard Kieser imaginibus: Abbess
Eberhard Kieser (1617)
Hollar 1651: Abbess
Hollar (1651)
Theatrum mortis humanae tripartitum: Abbess
Valvasor (1682)
Mechel 1780: Abbess
Mechel (1780)
Deuchar 1788: Abbess
Deuchar (1788)
Schlotthauer 1832: Abbess
Schlotthauer (1832)

Abbot Nobleman Up to Holbein's great dance of death