Luke Clennell’s Dance of Death
Twenty years have passed since my father died at this time of year and thoughts of mortality always enter my mind as the nights begin to draw in, as I prepare to face the spiritual challenge of another long dark winter ahead. So Luke Clennell’s splendid DANCE OF DEATH engravings inspired by Hans Holbein suit my mordant sensibility at this season.
First published in 1825 as the work of ‘Mr Bewick’, they have recently been identified for me as the work of Thomas Bewick’s apprentice Luke Clennell by historian Dr Ruth Richardson.
The Desolation
The Queen
The Pope
The Cardinal
The Elector
The Canon
The Canoness
The Priest
The Mendicant Friar
The Councillor or Magistrate
The Astrologer
The Physician
The Merchant
The Wreck
The Swiss Soldier
The Charioteer or Waggoner
The Porter
The Fool
The Miser
The Gamesters
The Drunkards
The Beggar
The Thief
The Newly Married Pair
The Husband
The Wife
The Child
The Old Man
The Old Woman
You may also like to take a look at
The stuff of nightmares to me – although I always admire the skill of art and especially engravings; And I never have taken to Halloween as it’s become in this day and age, with its trick or treat
I don’t have anything clever to say but thankyou for sharing these. I appreciate that.
Thank you – what a wonderfully vigorous collection! You might like this, on a sequence in Estonia: https://professorhedgehogsjournal.wordpress.com/2019/07/10/niguliste/
They are beautiful, remind me a bit of the skeleton fight in Jason and the Argonauts film!
Thank you for bringing these to our attention. They are so energetic and bursting with fascinating details. There is a brilliant mix of pathos and humour, that bewitching combination. I found The Beggar image especially poignant, as he is the only one searching the sky imploringly for Death, but Death has not come. Are they at the Bishopsgate Institute?