Summary: This section contains 4 different reproductions of the dance of death painting in St. Mary's Church in Lübeck.
If you're looking for "pretty" pictures, see the page with background images.
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 page presents 4 different depictions of the painting.
The first person to reproduce the painting was the vicar Ludewig Suhl who painted
water colours like the one to the left. These were later published as copper engravings
along with both the old text
from 1463 and the
"new" text from 1701
Click on the pictures to see all 8 plates and the "new" dance of death text from 1701 and Robert Nugent's translation
.
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.
Click on the picture to see all 8 plates
Carl Julius Milde was the last person ever to restore the painting. Then he
made the most handsome reproductions available.
Click on the pictures for a page about Milde with images of Lübeck - including the 8 plates
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| The empress. |
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| The empress (145 KB). |
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 text and translations
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.
(1)
I'm still waiting for this to happen. The Germans don't mind depicting Death on a box of chocolates (8=
Dansk 
Lübeck's dance of death
Pictures