In Vol. II. p. 118 (misprinted 208) of Steinwich’s “Bibliothecæ Ecclesiasticæ.” Colon. Agrip. 1599, folio. There is a single initial letter V only, which may have been part of an alphabet with a Dance of Death. The subject is Death and the queen. The size nearly an inch square.
At fo. 1. of “F. Marco de Guadalajara y Xavier, Memorable expulsion y justissimo destierro de los Moriscos de Espana, Pamplona, 1613, 4to.” there is an initial E, finely drawn and well engraved in wood. The subject has been taken from two cuts in the Lyons Dance of Death, viz. the cardinal and the emperor. From the first, the figures of the cardinal and Death seizing his hat; and from the other, the figures of the kneeling man, and of Death seizing the emperor’s crown, are introduced as a complete group in the above initial letter. Size, 1½ inch square.
In p. 66 of the same work there is another letter that has probably belonged to a set of initials with a Dance of Death. It is an H, and copied from the subject of the bishop taken by Death from his flock, in the Lyons series. It is engraved in a different and inferior style from that last mentioned, yet with considerable spirit. Size, 1½ inch.
CHAPTER XVI.
Paintings.—Drawings.—Miscellaneous.
ene of Anjou is said to have painted a sort of Death’s Dance at Avignon, which was destroyed in the French revolution.
In one of the wardrobe accounts of Henry VIII. a picture at Westminster is thus described: “Item, a table with the picture of a woman playing upon a lute, and an old manne holding a glasse in th’ one hande and a deadde mannes headde in th’ other hande.” MS. Harl. No. 1419.