The Dance of Death / Exhibited in Elegant Engravings on Wood with a Dissertation on the Several Representations of that Subject but More Particularly on Those Ascribed to Macaber and Hans Holbein

The Dance of Death
EXHIBITED IN ELEGANT ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD
WITH A DISSERTATION
ON THE SEVERAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THAT SUBJECT
BUT MORE PARTICULARLY ON THOSE ASCRIBED TO
Macaber and Hans Holbein
BY FRANCIS DOUCE ESQ. F. A. S. AND A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF NORMANDY AND OF THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ETC. AT CAEN
LONDON WILLIAM PICKERING 1833
C. Whittingham, Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.

he very ample discussion which the extremely popular subject of the Dance of Death has already undergone might seem to preclude the necessity of attempting to bestow on it any further elucidation; nor would the present Essay have ever made its appearance, but for certain reasons which are necessary to be stated.
The beautiful designs which have been, perhaps too implicitly, regarded as the invention of the justly celebrated painter, Hans Holbein, are chiefly known in this country by the inaccurate etchings of most of them by Wenceslaus Hollar, the copper-plates of which having formerly become the property of Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall, were published by him, accompanied by a very hasty and imperfect dissertation; which, with fewer faults, and considerable enlargement, is here again submitted to public attention. It is appended to a set of fac-similes of the above-mentioned elegant designs, and which, at a very liberal expense that has been incurred by the proprietor and publisher of this volume, have been executed with consummate skill and fidelity by Messrs. Bonner and Byfield, two of our best artists in the line of wood engraving. They may very justly be regarded as scarcely distinguishable from their fine originals.