Dance of Death, the Empress

Dance of Death, the Empress

These woodcuts portray an empress and a skeleton surrounded by young women. The skeleton embodies the typical case of feminine death specific for women, as it is represented with breasts and its skull is covered with the same item as the other young women in the woodcut. The same representation is seen in all items. However, as it sometimes occurs with this tradition, the last image contradicts the previous four by eliminating the feminine traits from the skeleton (i.e. breasts).

Hollar, Wenceslaus (1607-1677) (Image 1)
Schlotthauer, Joseph (1789-1869) (Image 2)
Douce, Francis (1757-1834), Bonner, George Wilmot (1796-1836) and Byfield, John (1788-1841). (Image 3)
Birckmann, Arnold (c. 1500-1542) (Image 4)
Anderson, Alexander (1775-1870) (Image 5)

Image 1.
National Gallery of Art. Wenceslaus Hollar after Hans Holbein The Younger after Abraham Van Diepenbeeck. Empress. In the series Dance of Death [Pennington 233-262], by Hollar, Wenceslaus (1651).
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.7803.html

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200902212931/https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.7803.html

Accession Number: 1943.3.4881

Also found on the "The Dance of Death" webpage:
http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=hollar-10

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191102233457/http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=hollar-10

Image 2.
Hans Holbein's Todtentanz: in 53 getreu nach den Holzschnitten lithographirten Blättern (Hans Holbein's Dance of Death: in 53 sheets faithfully lithographed from the woodcuts) by Holbein, ed. Schlotthauer, Joseph. München: Schlotthauer, (1832). Illustration 10. Die Kaiserin (the Empress), p. 44. Found in Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, Germany. URN: urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:1-71624 
http://digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/ihd/content/pageview/2642471

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200902213413/http://digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/ihd/content/pageview/2642471

Also found on the "The Dance of Death" webpage:
http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=schlotthauer-10

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190606115406/http://www.dodedans.com:80/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=schlotthauer-10

Image 3.
The Dance of Death, published by Douce (1833). Woodcutters were Bonner and Byfield. Found in The Dance of Death by Gilles Corrozet and Jean de Vauzelles (2007). Image X. The Empress (Danie iiii.). In Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21790/21790-h/21790-h.htm

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200617165113/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21790/21790-h/21790-h.htm

Also found on the "The Dance of Death" webpage:
http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=douce-10

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190606115316/http://www.dodedans.com:80/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=douce-10

Image 4.
Imagines mortis, by Vauzelles, Jean de (1555). Birckmann, Arnold printer. Köln, Germany. In Les Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes http://www.bvh.univ-tours.fr/Consult/index.asp?numfiche=247 f. A7v Illustration 10, the Empress.
http://www.bvh.univ-tours.fr/Consult/consult.asp?numtable=B372615206_8768&numfiche=247&index=22&mode=3&ecran=0

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200902214940/http://www.bvh.univ-tours.fr/Consult/consult.asp?numtable=B372615206_8768&numfiche=247&index=22&mode=3&ecran=0
 
Code: 8768

Also found on the "The Dance of Death" webpage:
http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=birckmann-10

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20200112145721/http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=birckmann-10

Image 5.
Emblems of mortality; representing, by numerous engravings, death seizing all ranks and conditions of people. Imitated from a painting in the cemetery of the Dominician [!] church, at Basil, in Switzerland, by Anderson (1846) Charlestown: Babcock & co.; New Haven, S. Babcock. The Empress, p. 22.
https://archive.org/details/emblemsofmortali00holbrich/page/22/mode/2up

Identifier: emblemsofmortali00holbrich

Also found on the "The Dance of Death" webpage:
http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=anderson-10

Archived in:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190806061857/http://www.dodedans.com/Exhibit/Image.php?lang=e&navn=anderson-10

Image 1: 1651
Image 2: 1832
Image 3: 1833
Image 4: 1555
Image 5: 1846

Woodcuts.