Totentanz by Walther Nithack-Stahn - [1926]: Erzahlt nach 12 stichten von Daniel Chodowiecki

Lovely suite of the ultra-rare Dance of Death etchings by the genius printmaker and painter Daniel Chodowiecki

Very good copy of this meticulous early 20th-century German reprint

Number 856 of a limited edition of 1,000

Complete with title-page with engraved vignette, 12 copperplates and 74 pages of text.

Decorative front cover in gold and black designed by Ernst Nicolas

Daniel Chodowiecki's legendary Dance of Death sequence was never published in book form. Instead, the twelve figures only appeared in the Ravenberg Calendar, 1792.

There are some unusual subjects along with the usual clerics and royalty. A fish wife killed by Death with a scythe, a prostitute whipped by a skeleton with a cat'o-nine-tails, a baby stolen by a winged skeleton while the mother sleeps, a swordsman losing a duel to a skeleton with a bone, a soldier on guard duty surprised by Death, etc.

For this edition, Chodowiecki's engravings were reprinted on a hand press at Meisenbarth Riffarth engraving company in Berlin.
Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki (1726-1801) was a Polish painter and printmaker who is most famous as an etcher. He spent most of his life in Berlin as a prolific book illustrator.

Walter Nithack-Stern (1866-1942) was a Protestant theologian and writer who was born and raised in Berlin.

Original black cloth boards with gilt title and decorative tooling on front board, all edges uncut, all text and plates clean and bright with crisp impressions of the plates. Paper just starting to age-tone.

A lovely copy.