The German artist Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 – 1543) was one of the foremost portraitists of the Renaissance and we owe him something of a debt for his pictures of numerous figures from the time of Henry VIII after he went to work in England in 1526. His father Hans and brother Ambrosius were also renowned artists (hence the necessity for “the Younger” in his sobriquet). These famous woodcuts on the medieval theme of the Dance of Death (Danse Macabre) were produced early in his career during the artist’s apprenticeship in Basle. I clipped them out of this book, which provides verse captions for each picture.

The Dance of Death is a medieval allegory showing how regardless of what station you have in life, Death (or creepy skeletons) takes us all. Interestingly, it’s not entirely clear where the word macabre (or macaber) comes from, though Britannica says that a long-running theory connects it to the Latin phrase chorea Machabea referring to gruesome medieval depictions of the deaths of the Maccabees, thus giving the word the meaning of “gruesome” and then later “death.” It was, in any case , a well-worn trope by the time Holbein took it up.

Note: These images are in the public domain. For more information, see A Primer on Image Rights on OBA.

(As always, click on the mosaic below to enter slideshow mode.)