The Physician
Physician
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eath takes a skinny, old man to the physician and hands over a urine glass as a sort of challenge.
The idea, with Death using a specimen of urine as a challenge, is one that Holbein copied
from his dance of death alphabet. Presumably Holbein found the original inspiration in
Bern's dance of death. See Initial M for details.
Popular anatomy anno 1538
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t is deeply ironic that the picture of the physician is the very picture where Holbein makes the gravest mistake:
Death has two bones in the upper arm and only one in the forearm.
That's how ignorant people were in the late Middle ages concerning anatomy.
It would still take a few years before
Andreas Vesalius
published De Corporis Fabrica in 1543 —
and it would take many years before basic anatomy became common knowledge.
Funny enough, Vesalius published his books in Basel, the same town where Holbein produced his woodcuts.
A hundred years later, Hollar made a similar error: The Death that attacks
| the soldier
has two thighbones.
Variations: Birckmann lets the shelf continue on the next wall.
The last book is decorated with a large X;
under the shelf there's a string holding prescriptions;
the bricks that form an arc over the door are removed; the door is ajar;
the simple table leg becomes a winged, fabulous monster.
Hollar and Deuchar copy Birckmann.
Scharffenberg makes a very free interpretation.
Anderson distinctly corrects the error in upper arm and forearm — but then again: Anderson was a doctor.
Various Artists
Manni (1675)
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Dances of death
Holbein's dance of death
Physician
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