Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Death and the Pope (Dance of death) [print].

Accession number
PML 15544.1
Published
[S.l. : s.n., 17--?]
Credit line
Purchased in 1906.
Notes
One of a set of 13 plates bound as a collection (see PML 15544).
Engraving from an unidentified edition; appears to be a reversed image based on Chovin's engraving after a design by Matthieu Merian (cf. PML 2120 published in Basle in 1774).
Engraved on paper, later cut out and mounted on vellum backing, hand-colored and with fabric incorporated into the design (découpé), further inlaid into a leaf of vellum bound into an album (brown blind-stamped leather with remainders of clasps, 25 cm).
Description
1 dressed print : engraving, dressed, hand-colored ; image: 112 x 100 mm; mount: 140 x 115 mm
Inscriptions/Markings
Numbered 1 in upper right corner of plate; numbered "Pl. 3" in lower left corner of mount.
Provenance
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) from Badin, 12 May 1906.
Summary
Print shows death Death and the pope facing right, with Death leading the pope by the hand. Death wears a garland of leaves and a skull hangs in front of his pelvis, secured with cord around his waist, which he appears to beat with a bone like a drum. The pope wears his robes of office and his triple crown and carries a double cross, and an indulgence and a pair of bones lie at his feet in the foreground.
Classification
Department