"THE DANCE OF DEATH" OF HOLBEIN ON DISPLAY

This week in the Memorial Room of Widener Library there is an exhibition of Hans Holbein's "Dance of Death," one of the most famous of religious works.

The "Dance of Death" has been described as a "single piece, a long procession of all orders of men, from the Pope to the lowest of human beings. Each figure has his partner, Death, the meagre spectre who leads the dance, shaking his remembering hour glass. The old peet, Lydgate, who flourished in the year 1430, translated a poem on the subject, from the French verses which attended a painting of the same kind, about St. Innocent's cloister, at Paris. The original verses were made by Machaber, a German, in his own language. This shows the antiquity of the subject, and the origin of the hint from which Holbein executed his famous painting at Basil."

In the Widener room, there are examples of many of editions of the work a very interesting one of which is Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, which has all the pictures of the "Dance of Death" along the borders of the pages. Death" along the borders of the pages.