Lübeck's Dance of Death

Anton Wortmann

The empress.

Death playing the flute We really don't know much about Wortmann - except that he was not a great artist. His masterpiece was rejected by the painters guild and he was only accepted into the guild in order to allow him to marry a poor widow.(1)

Wortmann became a master painter in 1686 - the same year that the church painter in St. Mary's, Jochim Dencker, retired. Nevertheless the church let the position remain vacant for three years until Wortmann was appointed church painter in Lübeck's main church - a position he retained between 1689 and 1727.

In 1701 Wortmann was responsible for replacing the medieval painting from 1463 with a new copy.

Did Wortmann make a good copy?

The empress, Tallinn The empress, Lübeck We should be grateful that the task was given to a careful craftsman. Had Wortmann been a great artist with an equally great ego, he would probably have made his own personal oeuvre and we wouldn't know anything about the original painting today.

We know that Wortmann made a painstaking copy because:

We are able to compare the picture with the fragment in Tallinn.
Jacob von Melle writes "The pictures now look exactly as they were designed earlier" and "even the former characteristic costumes on the picture are retained"(2).
As Mantels points out, the persons are in dresses that not only are from 1463 - but would already have been out of fashion by 1463.
Death is depicted in the medieval way - i.e. as a emancipated mummy. If the painting was from 1701, Death would have been pictured as a skeleton(3).
Lübeck's skyline appear twice on the painting - and the buildings are those that existed in 1463, not in 1701.

Did Wortmann make a perfect copy?

The introduction on the painting from 1701 Not quite - when the painting was copied, several changes were made:

It's almost 100% certain that the original painting began with a preacher addressing the congregation. The preacher appears in Tallinn, in all the manuscripts and in most other dances of death. But the painting from 1701 starts with a solemn admonition (see picture to the right).
Death leads the dance with flute and a fancy hat (see picture at the top of this page). In Tallinn it's bagpipe and turban. The picture in Lübeck can not be original because this kind of hats were not yet designed in 1463(4) (but of course, this change might have been done a long time before Wortmann).
The sequence was deliberately altered two places - see the notes here and here.
To the right of the physician there's 3 small figures. In contrast to the rest of the painting these persons are not dressed in medieval clothes - so they must have been added by Wortmann as a kind of personal "tag".

Sources

Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler der freien und Hansestadt Lübeck, Volume 2, Lübeck 1906
Wilhelm Mantels: Der Todtentanz in der Marienkirche zu Lübeck
Prof. Hartmut Freytag: Der Totentanz der Marienkirche in Lübeck

Further information:

(1) The guilds controlled the private life of their members - including whom they could marry and when: Normally, members were not allowed to marry before they had become masters.

Quote from the guild book: "Anthon Worthman ist mit seinen wiewol schlecht befundenen Probestück von den Eltesten vorgestellet, doch weil er sehl. Corth Fruchtenigs armselige Witwe heyrathen will, in Ansehung deßen auff der Eltesten Bitte biß zu Auffweisung seines Meisterstücks zugelaßen worden den 28. April Ao. 1686. Den 5. Novembr. ist sein Meisterstück vorgezeiget und er zum Meister eingeschrieben".

Death playing the flute (2) Jakob von Melle: "Die Bilder sehen jetzo annoch eben so aus, wie sie vordem gestalt gewesent" and "Man habe zwar die vorigen sonderbahren Trachten der Bilder beybehalten".

3 persons from 1701 (3) Death portrayed as a skeleton...: If examples are needed, check out Typus Omnium Morientium from 1622, Den Lybekske Dødning-Dantz from 1738 (only in the Danish section) or Døde-Dands from 1762.

(4) What do I know about hat fashion in 1463? I'm just quoting Gisela Jaacks in Der Totentanz der Marienkirche in Lübeck. It seems to me that Death in the start of the procession (to the left) looks like the Deaths in Wortmann's little scene (to the right).