Death checkmating the king

Deadly checkmate

Death has always been fond of playing chess. In the movie The Seventh Seal, the knight says to Death: »You play chess, right?«. Death shows some interest: »How do you know that?«, and the knight replies that he knows this from paintings and ballads: »Oh, I've seen it in paintings and heard it in the ballads.(*)

The director Ingmar Bergman knew the fresco in Täby Kirke, and not only was Bergman inspired by this old painting; but the painter Albertus Pictor (ca. 1450-1507) even got a role in the film, where he is busy painting a dance of death.

Täby church. Painted by Albertus Pictor

Another painting once existed in the cathedral in Strasbourg. The painting was from 1480, and we have a description of it from 1617, viz Summum Argentoratensium templum by Oseas Schadaeus. I have translated this description into English and reproduce it here in blue letters:

In this cloister there is a beautiful old painting on the wall, which has the following content: An angel with an hourglass in his hand says:

Opposite the angel stands the image of Death, who has a checkmate game for him, and says:

Beside the angel stand many popes, emperors, kings, bishops, priests, and other prelates and clerics, and above them all is written:

The seventh seal

Under Death are the following rhymes:

All her nach, E. T. (Eucharius Trosch)

Below the crowd came three stanzas in Latin; and below this, the year: 1480. Under the year was a stone slab:

Beneath all this is this small stone / from which you can see who has made and placed this painting.

The generous donor was Eucharius Trosch (also spelled Drosch), head of the cathedral's library. (For more examples of "all her nach", see the end of the dance in Füssen.)

Brant: the dangerous game of chess

Brant also wrote "The Ship of Fools". Chapter 85 was inspired by the dances of death.

Just a few years after the mural was painted, Sebastian Brant was inspired to write De periculoso scacorum ludo inter mortem & humanam conditionem, "About the dangerous game of chess between Death and the human condition".

Brant is particularly known as the author of The Ship of Fools (Das Narrenschiff), but in this short poem about chess he follows the same pattern as the painting: The poem is in both Latin and German (after all, the painting also ended with three stanzas in Latin): If we concentrate on the German speeches, an angel with an hourglass starts by speaking two lines;

Death then speaks two lines to his adversary, the emperor.

The emperor complains about the harsh play with two lines, and finally Death speaks to the people with 12 lines. See the external link.

Deadly checkmate

The exemplar in Berlin

The painting was already in poor condition when Oseas Schadaeus described it in 1617, and it perished in 1715 at the latest. Even if Schadaeus has given us a thorough description, it would of course have been better with a picture.

The artist has added his monogram on the copy in Basel.

In 1876, Wessely drew attention to the fact that a famous copper engraving resembles Schadaeus's description.(2)

The plate is very skillfully made, but there are only four copies in existence. According to the art connoisseur Bartsch, it is attributed to Israël de Mecken, but Bartsch did not believe this, because the print was designed and engraved much too well.(3) And Bartsch was right about that, because on the copy in Basel's Kunstmuseum (top of this page) the artist has added his monogram: The letters BR and an anchor (pictured right).

Death plays with the black pieces just like in Bergman's movie and has checked the white king. Behind the king stand the worldly subjects: A prince, several women, several men and a little boy. In total, there are twelve people, which, by the way, is the same as the number of pieces the king has lost in the game.

As in the dance of death, the participants are divided into worldly and clerical, and here the clergy stand on the right side, behind Death: Pope, cardinal, bishop and seven other people.

What particularly convinced Wessely that the print depicted the scene from the cathedral in Strasbourg were the three speech ribbons at the top of the picture. On the copy in Berlin (pictured left) they have been filled in with a pen in the 16th century. And the text is the same as in Strasbourg:

The same applies to the horizontal stripe at the bottom of the image. On the copies at the Louvre and the Albertina this piece is missing, but in Berlin it is filled in with the text from Strasbourg.

The only real difference is that »vß freyem wohn« has become: »vff minen won«.

Lehrs (and those who copy him) have chosen to render these words as: »vff minen tron«. This makes sense to some extent, but (1) this is not what is written either on the picture or in the cathedral, (2) Death is not sitting on a throne, and (3) how is "throne" supposed to be related to "freyem" as it said in the cathedral?(4)

In Journal für Geschichte, 1984, page 59 it is translated into modern High German as, »Ich sag es euch auf meinen Eid« (I tell you this on my oath), but I don't see how "won" can become "Eid".

External links

• Summum Argentoratensium templum, Oseas Schad, 1617. The description of the painting is on pages 51-52.
• De periculoso scacorum ludo inter mortem & humanam conditionem, by Sebastian Brant, 1498.
• Schachspiel mit dem Tod - the colored copy in Berlin.
• Der Tod spielt Schach mit dem König - the copy in Basel's Kunstmuseum.
• Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des deutschen, niederländischen und französischen Kupferstichs im XV. Jahrhundert, Max Lehrs 1927, vol. 6 (text), pp. 310-312

Further information

• The Dance of Death in Strasbourg
• Death from Lübeck, the king: "Thus regal state is mere pretence, A game at hazard or at chess;".
• For more examples of "all her nach", see the end of the dance in Füssen.
• Death surprising a young man - another etching by "Master B. R. with the anchor", although this work doesn't bear the artist's mark.

Footnotes: (*) (1) (2) (3) (4)

Dansk The dance of death Miscellanea Checkmate