Merian, Matthaeus. Death dance, like the same one in the löbl. u. world-famous city of Basel, is artificially ground and to be seen as a mirror of human nature ... 98 S. With engraved titles and 43 text coppers from A. Chovin to Math. Merian. 22.5 x 16.5 cm. Pappband d. C. (bending, infesting, capitals with flaws) with hs. RSchild. Basel, Birmann u. Söhne, o. J. (1830). Massmann-Taepper, 78, 13. Oppermann, Kat. 414, 1130 – Last edition of Merian's Dance of Death with J. A. Chovin stabbed records. "Very rare edition, which has an extremely interesting and culturally valuable foreword. The Merian's and Chovin's death dance episodes with their various editions are very interesting from two points of view: from purely bibliographical-graphical and cultural historical. Bibliographically and graphically, it can certainly be regarded as a unique thing that a sequence of over 40 copper plates over the course of two centuries (1621-1830) is used again and again with the respective improvements, the taste of the time and the technical perfection of the graphic. We can actually speak here of 4 record states, of which the last three are represented in this collection: I. The original state, engraved in Basel by Johann Jacob Merian, c. 1620. II. The revision of the records by Matthäus Merian in Frankfurt, c. 1649. III. The Chovinian improvement and refinement of the engraving, again in Basel, c. 1743. IV. The final state, by unknown hand (Birmann?) for Birmann's publishing house was produced in 1830. Historically, the prefaces of the various editions are the best illustration of how man and his time dealt with the idea of death and its pictorial representation. In Holbein's death dance, the invalid classical formulation, it reached its climax; immediate reverberations prevailed at the beginning of the 17th century. In the early 20th century, where the idea of death was an inner urge, the Christian reader sees his vanity in front of his eyes every day. '... If he is a shameful Koth, because he was still alive: and when the Artzt has been patching it for a long time, then it is finally so, today King, dead tomorrow: And when a man is dead, the serpents and worms eat him. The Bible quotes Matth. Merian, 1649. And 200 years later, in the foreword of the Birmann edition 1830: ‘... Only a barbaric age in which the truths of the Gospel were distorted by superstition was allowed to depict death under the hideous form in which we see it in these paintings. The ancients, who very rarely painted skeletons at all, because such skeletons do not fit into objects for the beautiful arts, have never thought of contemplating the abstract idea of death in such a disgusting way.' To the age of classical music, the people of Goethe and Winkelmann, an edition of such old death dance episodes could only offer a purely external, art- and cultural-historical interest, internal edification was excluded, and in fact the publisher only wanted to bring a monument back to the memory, which gave the spirit of the Middle Ages in such a speaking way Birmann, 1830" (Oppermann). With French and German text. – A little brown and finger stained, occasionally with cracks otherwise good specimen. With partly very gritty coppers.