![[HOLBEIN, Hans, the younger (1497-1543)] -- Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imagines. Lyon: Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel [for Jean and François Frellon], 1538.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2013/NYR/2013_NYR_02706_0034_000(holbein_hans_the_younger_--_les_simulachres_historiees_faces_de_la_mor080706).jpg?w=1)
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[HOLBEIN, Hans, the younger (1497-1543)] -- Les simulachres & historiees faces de la mort, autant elegamment pourtraictes, que artificiellement imagines. Lyon: Melchior and Gaspar Trechsel [for Jean and François Frellon], 1538.
4o (166 x 118mm). Collation: A-N4. 49 leaves only (of 52; C3, F2 and G1 removed). Roman types. 35 (of 41) woodcut illustrations by HANS LüTZELBURGER after Holbein, ALL VERY FINELY ILLUMINATED IN GOLD AND COLORS by a contemporary artist or a little later at the time of binding, printers' woodcut device and the first two initials also illuminated, woodcut initials in the text following the illustrations left plain. (Text on C4v, D3r, E2v and E3v, all relating to clerics carried off by Death, crossed out in ink and scraped off, but the colored cuts left intact, small hole in H1 affecting a few letters, marginal dampstain.)
PENITENTIAL BINDING: Parisian gold-tooled dark maroon morocco over pasteboard of c. 1585, border of small passion tools on sides, including portraits of Christ, Judas, Caiaphas, Herod and Pontius Pilate, tears, cock, veronica, crown of thorns, dice, tomb, arma Christi, etc., the field and flat spine semé with skulls, crossbones and larger tears, shield within a wreath bearing arms formed with small tools (leaved tree, on a chief three stars) in the center of both sides, gilt edges, (repair to corners and lower joint, split in upper joint). Provenance: member of a penitential confraternity founded by Henri III, perhaps the Compagnie des Confrères de la Mort (unidentified arms on binding) -- Edmée Maus of Geneva (gilt morocco booklabel) -- Acquired from Librairie Paul Jammes 1976.
FIRST EDITION OF HOLBEIN'S DANCE OF DEATH, whose iconographic influence has lasted until modern times. A few sets of proof impressions, apparently pulled at Basel in the mid-1520s, are recorded. The text has been attributed to Jean de Vauzelles or Gilles Corrozet. "Although not strictly an emblem book, the volume would certainly appeal to the rapidly increasing public for emblem literature" (Mortimer p. 352). The text on four pages has been censored and three leaves were cancelled altogether, presumably at the behest of the confraternity member for whom this copy was illuminated and bound. The binding is closely related to one executed for a member of the Rohan family on a Tours manuscript prayerbook of c. 1510 (Pierpont Morgan Library M. 292); they share the general semis design and apparently all 29 passion tools in the border (see P. Needham, Twelve centuries of bookbindings 93). EXTRAORDINARY COPY, combining the graphic art of Holbein, book illumination and Parisian luxury binding. Brun 235; Fairfax Murray French 247; Mortimer French 284. Fact and Fantasy 30.
4o (166 x 118mm). Collation: A-N4. 49 leaves only (of 52; C3, F2 and G1 removed). Roman types. 35 (of 41) woodcut illustrations by HANS LüTZELBURGER after Holbein, ALL VERY FINELY ILLUMINATED IN GOLD AND COLORS by a contemporary artist or a little later at the time of binding, printers' woodcut device and the first two initials also illuminated, woodcut initials in the text following the illustrations left plain. (Text on C4v, D3r, E2v and E3v, all relating to clerics carried off by Death, crossed out in ink and scraped off, but the colored cuts left intact, small hole in H1 affecting a few letters, marginal dampstain.)
PENITENTIAL BINDING: Parisian gold-tooled dark maroon morocco over pasteboard of c. 1585, border of small passion tools on sides, including portraits of Christ, Judas, Caiaphas, Herod and Pontius Pilate, tears, cock, veronica, crown of thorns, dice, tomb, arma Christi, etc., the field and flat spine semé with skulls, crossbones and larger tears, shield within a wreath bearing arms formed with small tools (leaved tree, on a chief three stars) in the center of both sides, gilt edges, (repair to corners and lower joint, split in upper joint). Provenance: member of a penitential confraternity founded by Henri III, perhaps the Compagnie des Confrères de la Mort (unidentified arms on binding) -- Edmée Maus of Geneva (gilt morocco booklabel) -- Acquired from Librairie Paul Jammes 1976.
FIRST EDITION OF HOLBEIN'S DANCE OF DEATH, whose iconographic influence has lasted until modern times. A few sets of proof impressions, apparently pulled at Basel in the mid-1520s, are recorded. The text has been attributed to Jean de Vauzelles or Gilles Corrozet. "Although not strictly an emblem book, the volume would certainly appeal to the rapidly increasing public for emblem literature" (Mortimer p. 352). The text on four pages has been censored and three leaves were cancelled altogether, presumably at the behest of the confraternity member for whom this copy was illuminated and bound. The binding is closely related to one executed for a member of the Rohan family on a Tours manuscript prayerbook of c. 1510 (Pierpont Morgan Library M. 292); they share the general semis design and apparently all 29 passion tools in the border (see P. Needham, Twelve centuries of bookbindings 93). EXTRAORDINARY COPY, combining the graphic art of Holbein, book illumination and Parisian luxury binding. Brun 235; Fairfax Murray French 247; Mortimer French 284. Fact and Fantasy 30.