Lübeck's dance of death has been reproduced in watercolours, copperplates, lithographs, photographs, and tin figurines and I wouldn't be surprised if - one day - the burghers of Lübeck made figurines out of Niederegger-marzipan.(1)
This section presents several different depictions of the painting.
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The first person to reproduce the painting was the vicar and juror Ludewig Suhl who painted
watercolours like the one to the left. These were later published as copper engravings
along with the old Low German text
from 1463 as well as the
"new" text from 1701.
On the present site, Suhl's engravings are used for illustrating the new text from 1701 along with Robert Nugent's translation.
More about Ludewig Suhl
Eight lithographs that are copied after Suhl, and include all of Suhl's mistakes and deviations. The duke and "his" Death has also been copied from Suhl, even though the duke had been removed from the painting in 1799. The background has been toned down to put emphasis on the dancers.
The lithographs don't indicate neither printery nor year, but since there wasn't any lithographic printeries in Lübeck before 1827, this gives us an idea about the year.
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More about Hauttmann.
The Brothers Borchers' reproduction are based on Hauttmann. All details in the background have been removed.
More about Brothers Borchers.
Four sheets of paper glued together. The text takes up a lot of the space.
The artwork is very similar to those the Brothers Borchers — both concerning size and style, but they are not from the same hand. Just like Borchers', these drawings are ultimately based on Hauttmann.
Thomas King was an architect, but he dedicated 10 plates
to Lübeck's dance in »The study-book of mediæval architecture and art«
from 1857 (the plates are marked 1858).
Read more about T. H. King.
Carl Julius Milde was the last person ever to restore the painting. Then he
made the most handsome reproductions available.
More about about Milde with images of Lübeck - including the 8 plates with the dance of death.
Robert Geißler was the first to make a colour reproduction of the painting - in 1868 -
with his 5-colour lithograph.
The little pictures measuring ca. 12 * 5,5 cm are not great art - but they are probably
our best witnesses to the original colours.
More about Robert Geißler.
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Wilhelm Castelli (1901-1984) took very detailed photographs of the painting between the two world wars (just try and click on the two pictures of the empress).
Click the picture above to go to the section with the entire dance of text - including the old text from 1463.
Let us not forget that to this very day there's still a 7.5 meter fragment
in Tallinn - presumably painted by Bernt Notke himself.
There's a separate section about the dance of death in Tallinn, Estonia.
Footnotes: (1)
I'm still waiting for this to happen. The Germans don't mind depicting Death on a box of chocolates. (8=
The dance of death
Lübeck
Pictures