[Rarebooks] FS: 1649 Dance of Death with Striking Engravings by Merian

[Charles Agvent]

 From our recent catalog: Summer Miscellany with 85 select items in a 
variety of fields.  See the catalog here: 
*http://www.charlesagvent.com/agvent/images/pdfs/Summer2017.pdf*

MERIAN, Matthaeus. TODTEN-TANTZ, WIE DERSELBE IN DER LÖBLICHEN UND 
WEITBERÜHMTEN STATT BASEL ALS EIN SPIEGEL MENSCHLICHER BESCHAFFENHET... 
Frankfurt: [Merian], 1649. First Merian Edition. Small quarto (6-5/8" x 
8") bound at a later date in early manuscript in red and black over 
boards with an illuminated letter; [3], 4-206, [2] pages. Illustrated 
with a title within allegorical engraved border, 42 engravings depicting 
the Dance of Death by Merian, an engraved illustration ("Memento Mori"), 
and a striking reversible portrait showing the sitter alive and dead. 
Merian's depictions of the Dance of Death were copied from 
fifteenth-century frescoes on the churchyard wall of the Dominican 
church in Basel; the frescoes were restored in the early sixteenth 
century and again in the early seventeenth century. Johann Jakob Merian 
originally engraved the plates in 1621, after the second restoration, 
and Matthaeus Merian revised them in 1649 for this edition. The images 
provide lively vignettes of contemporary life and costume, from the 
moneylender at his table to the peddler with his tray of goods, the 
artist and the musician, the cardinal and the king, all treated 
universally by Death, represented as a skeleton, as he leads them to 
their common destiny. Library bookplate on the front pastedown and slip 
on the rear, each plate with a small ink stamp on the verso. Small, old 
bookseller's ticket of Gustav E. Stechert of New York on the front 
pastedown. Very clean copy with only light marginal foxing and a small 
stain at the center of just the last few pages, most noticeable on the 
reversible portrait. Early ink name of Georg Neumann with a short 
paragraph in German in a small hand on the front endpaper. Binding a 
little darkened with white library numbers on the spine which has a 
small tear and a dark stain on the rear board that bleeds slightly into 
the interior. A Near Fine copy in an attractive binding. (#018474)    
     $6,000.00

https://www.charlesagvent.com/shop/agvent/018474.html

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