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These pen lithographs have clearly been copied from Ludewig Suhl's copperplate engravings.
The images include all the mistakes that Suhl made, for example the three small figures just before the usurer, which should have been two Deaths and one woman, and the maiden's false sleeve, which hangs freely suspended in the air. The duke is of course also copied from Suhl, since the duke had disappeared from the painting in 1799.
The text is also copied from Suhl including the error that the last one and a half lines of the hermit's speech, "der Tugend wenig schätzt, […]", are a repetition of the civil servant's speech. The solemn exhortation at the beginning, "Still, Vermessener !", has been omitted.
The 8 pages measure a total of 240 cm. The drawings are not nearly as good as Suhl's, and the background in particular is very sketchy.
The copy in the St. Annen-Museum in Lübeck is missing the cover, and therefore it is not known who published these lithographs and when. However, since a lithography printery did not come to Lübeck until 1827, this gives us the earliest date.
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The dance of death
Lübeck
Pictures
Anonymous
