Physician Rich man

 
Astrologer  
 

The Astrologer

D eath presents a skull to The Astrologer. Presumably to show a comparison between the spherical universe and the skull.

Above the head of the astrologer hangs a model of the Universe with the Zodiac, which is reminiscent of the picture of The Last Judgment.

The astrologer did not appear on most of the printer's proofs, but with the official issue of Les Simulachres & Historiées in Lyon in 1538 he became an integrated part of the dance of death.

Variations: Birckmann lets the astrologer measure a globe; the window is made square with a shell-motif above. Valvasor and Deuchar copies Birckmann. However, Valvasor ignores the mussel-shell above the window, which shows that Deuchar has copied Birckmann, and not Valvasor.
Rubens places 2 rulers crosswise on the table, and Mechel replaces them with a real cross.

Holbein's Imagines Mortis: Astrologer
Les Simulachres (1538)
Birckmann 1555: Astrologer
Birckmann (1555)
Rubens: Astrologer
Paul Peter Rubens ca 1590
Eberhard Kieser imaginibus: Astrologer
Eberhard Kieser (1617)
Theatrum mortis humanae tripartitum: Astrologer
Valvasor (1682)
Mechel 1780: Astrologer
Mechel (1780)
Deuchar 1788: Astrologer
Deuchar (1788)
Bechstein 1831: Astrologer
Bechstein (1831)

Physician Rich man Up to Holbein's great dance of death