Le Triomphe De La Mort, Desseins De Holbein, Par Hollar ca. 1794
This is another book about the dances of death in the Middle Ages. It is titled Le Triomphe De La Mort. Grave D’apres Les Desseins De Holbein, Par W. Hollar, which means “the Triumph of Death, Engraved From the Designs of Holbein, by Hollar”, it is written in French and it’s not dated, but is an important book from the 17th century.
The book is rebound in green morocco, with gilt lettering and gilt devices on the spine, a gilt diamond pattern on the covers, gray-blue marbled endpapers with the bookplates of George John Vernon and John Roland Abbey, a hand-written note on the first blank endpaper is in French, it restates the title and says “green morocco” at end of the note, there are frontis portraits of Hans Holbein and Wenceslaus Hollar, then the title page, an explication page, with 30 etchings plus the two frontis portraits and a double-page etching at the rear which shows a procession of kings and clergy led by the Grim Reaper, the last blank endpaper has a note that says 18-12-1936, which is probably December 18,1936, the book is not dated and the publisher is not mentioned, but it was probably J. Edwards, based on the hand-written note on the first blank endpaper in front (and Edwards published a copy of the book around 1794, according to a note in Edwards’ own catalogue), all the edges are gilt, and all the etchings have white paper rectangles on the back side, apparently to reinforce the etchings. We don’t know if this was a common practice at the time, but these white paper rectangles are there.
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607 - 1677) was an accomplished graphic artist of the 17th century who was born in Prague and spent much of his life in England. He was known to German speakers as Wenzel Hollar and to Czech speakers as Vaclav Hollar, and he is particularly known for his engravings and etchings. He produced over 400 drawings and 3000 etchings, and they covered a variety of subjects, like portraits, landscapes, religion, heraldry, and still lifes, and he illustrated Holbein’s Dance of Death series because of its immense popularity; he used an earlier Cologne edition which might have had errors or missing images, which prompted him to make a definitive etched series that captured the spirit of the originals, and he etched some plates for the series, but didn't complete all of them because he died before the series was completed. (Hollar was born after Rubens, too, and did he even know that Rubens created the original drawings for the book, and not Holbein?)
George John Warren Venables-Vernon, 5th Baron Vernon (1803 - 1866) was a British politician, one of the last members of parliament for Derbyshire and the first for South Derbyshire. Vernon had a lifetime enthusiasm for Italian literature, particularly Dante, after visiting Italy as a child. Vernon county is named after him in Australia.
Major John Roland Abbey (1894 - 1969) was an English book collector and high sheriff of Sussex (1945). At the start of World War I, he was commissioned as a regimental officer in the Rifle Brigade, serving two years on the Western Front in the 13th and 8th Battalions. He was gassed in November 1916 and spent five months recovering in hospital before being invalided out, and he would become the largest English book collector of his time. He started book collecting in 1929, buying books from various private presses, eventually he became interested in modern bindings and antiquarian books.
The book measures 5 9/16 x 4 5/16 and is in very good condition, with a tight binding and light soiling or brown spots in the margins, and there are waves on the gilt edges. One etching seems to have been cut out and taken from another edition of the book - the type is a little larger than the type in the other etchings - but all the etchings are present. (The etching hat seems to have come from another edition precedes the description for planet XXV title Le Voiturier.) WorldCat lists only five copies in Special Collections around the world (Tulane, Princeton, the Univ of Michigan, Oxford, and Cambridge in the UK; Yale has an ebook copy and three other places are listed as having the book, but when we checked, the books were removed or not listed on their websites.) The book sold at Christie’s for £750 ($1000) in 2008 and is being offered for $540 and $1450 on the rare book website we use.
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