Holbein's Influence

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Imagines mortis.
Cologne, 1555.
(ADJ7045)

Holbein’s work influenced Bible illustration as well as later artists producing their own versions of the Dance of Death. In his series Holbein introduced four initial plates that situated the human experience of death within a Biblical context. It is not surprising that these images can also be found in Bibles published after the 1538 Simulachres. His influence on later artists can be seen in their adherence to Holbein’s sequence, compositions, characterizations, and details. Some of these editions explicitly acknowledged Holbein on the title page or elsewhere in the work.

Holbein's Influence