History
Visual Arts

Tu congnoys bien la maladie
Pour le patient fecourir
Et fi ne fcais tefte eftourdie
Le mal dont tu deburas mourir.

Hans Holbein's Woodcuts of The Dance of Death

"Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort"
Images taken from 41 Woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger from a Facsimile of the 1538 French Edition

The Dance of Death woodcuts were first published in Lyons, 1523/4 and ran to ten editions in twelve years. It depicts the bitterness of the Peasants' War and 'Death' as the harvester of men and the final proof of their equality. Holbein was not the first artist to produce an illustrated book but his work is representative of some of the finest of the period. Aside from its value as pure entertainment Holbein's work is responsible for our understanding of the physical characterists of Henrician England.