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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 49| February 2001
Grateful gift: 1788 edition of Holbeins Dance of Death
[The Husbandman], Copper engraving
reproduced from Dance of Death by Hans Holbein
(Edinburgh: [s.n.],
1788
A small, leather covered book, typical of 18th-century binding techniques, was recently donated to the National Library of Australia by a Tasmanian researcher, as a thank you for the reference assistance he had received from Maps staff.
The book, Hans Holbeins Dance of Death is renowned for the fine quality of its allegorical engravings of Death leading all walks of life in a dance to the grave. The original woodcut engravings were made in the sixteenth century. This edition, published in Edinburgh in 1788, is now the oldest version of the work in the Librarys collection. It features 46 of Holbeins original woodcuts, reproduced as copper engravings set in a surround with additional detail by David Deuchar. Each image is accompanied by a description in French and English with the scripture text from which the designs were taken.
Hence, the Husbandman:
Were Death capable of consideration, what class of society would better deserve to be exempted from his ravages, than the Labourers, incontestibly the most useful, most laborious and most productive of real opulence? But he is now striking the horses harnessed to this husbandmans plough, and this enemy of the human race can strike no blow more severely felt, than by thus attacking it in the source of its subsistence.
In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, tuo. Gen. III. 19
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: dthomas@nla.gov.au