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The dance of death : in painting and in print ; with woodcuts
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THE DANCE OF DEATH.

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Convent, and twice restoredor repainted, in 1566 and 1010; Holbein,who vulgarly has the credit of this, also painted upon a house atBasil a Dance, even whose "dead shadows" are spoken of byBishop Burnet as being preferable to the coarse renewed work atthe Convent.

At Klingenthal in the Little Basil was a Dance, thought tobe of higher antiquity than that in the Dominican Churchyard.

Masonelle painted one at Dijon in 1436.

St. Mary's at Berlin (discovered i860), Dresden, Annaberg,Minden, Amiens, Meissen, Vienna, Nuremberg, Chaise-Dieu inAuvergne (painted in 1424), Leipsic, Erfurt, Berne(destroyed 1660),St. Innocent's at Paris, have each left record of their possession ofa painted Dance, while at Feschamps is a sculptured representa-tion. There are some remains of a Dance at St. Maclou, Rouen. Thefinest examples extant are those in the cloisters surrounding thecemetery at Pisa, and in the roof of the ancient bridge at Berne.

At St. Mary's Church, Lubeck, is a fine Dance, considered tohave been painted in 1463. This, more than almost any other ofthe Dances, is really such, the action of the skeletons being glee-fully saltatory. The procession is headed by a prancing anatomyplaying the flute; while following hand in hand is a long line ofskeletons and human beings, inscribed below as Der Papst, DerKaiser, Der Kaiserin, Der Cardinal, Der Konig, Der Bischof, DerHerzog, Der Abt, Der Ritter, Der Carthauser, Der Burgernuistt 1,Der Domherr, Der Edelmann, and the rest, all in glum contrast totheir merry conductors, who, from the piping Flotenblaser in frontto the last of the crew, seem eager to hurry on their charges. Thelast is a skeleton with a scythe, who seems to hesitate as he pre-pares to mow down the mother by the cradle, under which iswritten, as a finale to the catalogue of victims, "Das Wiegenkinde."