Atlas zu dem Werke: Die Baseler Todtenta nze in getreuen Abbildungen

Leipzig: Expedition des Klosters, 1847. Good. Some scattering foxing. Extremities worn, spine heavily chipped.. A scarce Victorian rendering of the Basel Dance of Death, presented in "81 illustrations on 22 copperplates and 27 lithographed sheets" (translated form the German title-page). The Basel Dance of Death was painted inside a cemetery wall near the Predigerkirche in Basel in the 1400s, and featured memento mori imagery of a skeleton ("Death") dancing with different characters, reminding viewers that Death comes for everyone, regardless of class, wealth, or social status. The characters range from farmer to merchant to jurist and duchess, and have (truncated) become iconic symbols of the "danse macabre" trope in art history. This edition reproduces the images, and provides viewers with copperplate engravings with line drawings and simplified line drawings of each image, as well as several pages of lithographic reproductions of a 16th century woodcut edition of the images. Advertises an upcoming colored edition to be published the next year at foot of title-page. Single vol. (11" by 9.25"), 49 unnumbered leaves printed on rectos only (copperplate engraving, lithography, letterpress), in contemporary (original?) marbled paper boards backed in red sheep, spine stamped in gold, later engraved bookplate of Charles Frederic Crehore to upper pastedown. Loose contemporary engraved handbill advertisement for Oxford baker and confectioner J. Boffin enclosed in front. Hans Ferdinand Massmann (1797-1874) was a medievalist, poet, and professor of German studies. (Inventory #: 21004899)