34 The Dance of Death.

in a very short space of time completely succeeded inits total demolition, a few fragments only being still pre*served in the collection of Counsellor Vischer at his castleof Wildensheim, near Basle. This account of its destructionis recorded in Millin's Magazin Encyclopedique among thenouvelles litteraires for that year; but the Etrenne Hel-vetique for the above year has given a different accountof the matter : it states that the painting having been oncemore renovated in the year 1703, fell afterwards into greatdecay, being entirely peeled from the wall—that this cir-cumstance had, in some degree, arisen from the occupationof the cloister by a ropemaker—that the wall having beenfound to stand much in the way of some new buildingserected near the spot, the magistrates ventured, but notwithout much hesitation, to remove the cloister, with itspainting, altogether in the year 1805—and that this occa-sioned some disturbance in the city among the commonpeople, but more particularly with those who had residedin its neighbourhood, and conceived a renewed attachmentto the painting.

Of this Dance of Death very few specific copies havebeen made. M. Heinecken 20 has stated that it was engravedin 1544, by Jobst Denneker of Augsburg; but he hasconfounded it with a work by this artist on the otherDance of Death ascribed to Holbein, and which will beduly noticed hereafter. The work which contained theearliest engravings of the Basle painting, can on this occa-sion be noticed only from a modern reprint of it underthe following title : " Der Todten-Tantz wie derselbe inder weitberuhmten Stadt Basel als ein Spiegel menslicherbeschaffenheit gantz kuntlich mit lebendigen farben gemah-let, nicht ohne nutzliche vernunderung zu schen ist. Basel,bey Joh. Conrad und Joh. Jacob von Mechel, 1769, i2mo."That is, " The Dance of Death, painted most skilfully, andm lively colours, in the very famous town of Basel, as amirror of human life, and not to be looked on withoutuseful admiration."

The first page has some pious verses on the paintingin the church-yard of the Predicants, of which the present

30 Heinecken, Dictionn. des Artistes, iii. 67, et iv. 595. He followsKeysler's error respecting Hans Bock.