Those intelligent and amusing travellers, Breval, Keysler, and Blainville have carefully avoided the above strange mistakes.
Writers on painting and engraving.—Meyssens, in his article for Holbein in “the effigies of the Painters,” mentions his “Death’s Dance, in the town-hall of Basle, the design whereof he first neatly cut in wood and afterwards painted, which appeared so fine to the learned Erasmus, &c.” English edition, 1694, p. 15.
Felibien, in his “Entretiens sur les vies des Peintres,” follows Meyssens as to the painting in the town-hall.
Le Comte places the supposed painting by Holbein in the fish-market, and in other respects copies Meyssens. “Cabinet des Singularités, &c.” tom. iii. p. 323, edit. 1702, 12mo.
Bullart not only places the painting in the town-hall of Basle, but adds, that he afterwards engraved it in wood. “Acad. des Sciences et des Arts,” tom. ii. p. 412.
Mr. Evelyn, in his “Sculptura,” the only one of his works that does him no credit, and which is a meagre and extremely inaccurate compilation, when speaking of Holbein, actually runs riot in error and misconception. He calls him a Dane. He makes what he terms “the licentiousness of the friars and nuns,” meaning probably Hollar’s sixteen etchings after Holbein’s satire on monks and friars and other members of the Romish church as the persecutors of Christ, and also the “Dance Machabre and Mortis imago,” to have been cut in wood, and one or both of the latter to have been painted in the church of Basle. Mr. Evelyn’s own copy of this work, with several additions in manuscript, is in the possession of Mr. Taylor, a retired and ingenious artist, of Cirencester-place. He probably intended to reprint it, and opposite the above-mentioned word “Dane,” has inserted a query.
Sandrart places the Dance of Death in the fish-market at Basle, and makes Holbein the painter as well as the engraver. “Acad. artis pictoriæ,” p. 238, edit. 1683, folio.
Baldinucci speaks of twenty prints of the Dance of Death painted by Holbein in the Senate-house of Basle. “Notizie dè professori del disegno, &c.” tom. iii. 313 and 319.
M. Descamps inadvertently ascribes the old Dance of Death on the walls of the church-yard of Saint Peter to the pencil of Holbein. “Vie des Peintres Flamandi,” &c. 1753. 8vo. Tom. i. p. 75.
Papillon, in his account of the Dance of Death, abounds with inaccuracies. He says, that a magistrate of Basle employed him to paint a Dance of Death in the fish-market, near a church-yard; that the work greatly increased his reputation, and made much noise in the world, although it has many anatomical defects; that he engraved this painting on small blocks of wood with unparalleled beauty and delicacy. He supposes that they first appeared in 1530 at Basle or Zuric, and as he thinks with a title and German verses on each print. Now he had never seen any edition so early as 1530, nor any of the cuts with German verses, and having probably been misled on this occasion, he has been the cause of misleading many subsequent writers, as Fournier, Huber, Strutt, &c. He adopts the error as to the mark