The Waggoner

he waggoner is attacked by two Deaths. One of them rips the waggon apart, while the other loosens the barrels. The waggoner was added in the 5^th edition in 1547.

One horse has already been killed, but the waggoner himself doesn't appear to be in mortal danger. This is a bit strange if you read the preface to the 1538-edition. According to this preface, the artist is dead(!), because Death wanted to prevent the artist from making more portraits of him: »[…] and thus prevented him from completing many other figures which he had already designed, especially that of the carman crushed and wounded beneath his demolished wagon, the wheels and horses of which are so frightfully overthrown that as much horror is excited in beholding their downfall, as pleasure in contemplating the lickerishness of one of the Deaths, who is clandestinely sucking with a reed the wine in a bursting cask« (translated from French by Francis Douce)

First of all, Holbein wasn't dead in 1538 (but the preface may have alluded to the woodcutter, Lützelburger), and second, Death is not sucking wine out of the casks, but is actively loosening the hoops. But the important part is that the author of this preface claims in 1538 — 9 years before the waggoner was officially added to the series — that he has seen an incomplete picture, where the waggoner lies crushed under his vehicle.