REGARDER LA MORT EN FACE

Actes du XIXe congrès international de l’association

Danses macabres d’Europe
BUCAREST, 9-12 septembre 2021
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 Cristina BOGDAN
Silvia MARIN BARUTCIEFF
(éds.)

REGARDER LA MORT EN FACE

Actes du XIXe congrès international de l’association
Danses macabres d’Europe

BUCAREST, 9-12 septembre 2021

2021
RÉFÉRENTS SCIENTIFIQUES :
Denis HÜE (Université de Rennes 2)
Danielle QUÉRUEL (Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne)
Marco PICCAT (Università degli studi di Trieste)

DTP: Roxana Lăzărescu

Couverture: Ștefan Barutcieff
Première couverture – l ̕ église de Borovinești, dép. d ̕ Argeș
Dernière couverture - l ̕ eglise de Fârtățești, dép. de Vâlcea

Tous les droites d̕auteurs sont la responsabilité des auteurs des textes.
All copyright protection rules applicable to the texts are the responsablity of the authors.

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Regarder la mort en face : actes du XIXe congrès
international de l'association Danses macabres
d'Europe : Bucarest, 9-12 septembre 2021 / coord.:
Cristina Bogdan, Silvia Marin Barutcieff. - Bucureşti :
Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, 2021
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ISBN 978-606-16-1262-8

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II. Marin-Barutcieff, Silvia (coord.)

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COMITÉ SCIENTIFIQUE DU CONGRÈS :

Cristina BOGDAN, maître de conférences, Faculté des Lettres, Université de

Bucarest
Policarp CHIȚULESCU, archimandrite, directeur de la Bibliothèque du Saint-Synode
de l’Église Orthodoxe Roumaine
Ilona HANS-COLLAS, historienne de l’art, présidente de l’association Danses
macabres d’Europe
Didier JUGAN, vice-président de l’association Danses macabres d’Europe
Silvia MARIN BARUTCIEFF, maître de conférences, Faculté des Lettres, Université
de Bucarest
Marco PICCAT, professeur émérite, Università degli studi di Trieste
Danielle QUÉRUEL, professeur émérite, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
Bertrand UTZINGER, fondateur de l’association Danses macabres d’Europe

COMITÉ DE LECTURE DU VOLUME :

Cristina BOGDAN, maître de conférences, Faculté des Lettres, Université de

Bucarest
Ilona HANS-COLLAS, historienne de l’art, présidente de l’association Danses
macabres d’Europe
Didier JUGAN, vice-président de l’association Danses macabres d’Europe
Silvia MARIN BARUTCIEFF, maître de conférences, Faculté des Lettres, Université
de Bucarest
Danielle QUÉRUEL, professeur émérite, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
Hélène et Bertrand UTZINGER, fondateurs de l’association Danses macabres
d’Europe
 SOMMAIRE

INTRODUCTION EN FRANÇAIS/ 9
INTRODUCTION IN ENGLISH / 14

DANSES MACABRES DES ORIGINES

Laurent UNGEHEUER, La Danse macabre du livre d'heures Morgan M. 359 :
contexte et inspiration d'une danse contemporaine des Innocents / 21
Didier JUGAN, Danse macabre : le chartreux et l’ermite / 35
Clément GUINAMARD, David JOUNEAU, Marie BÉGUÉ, Margot BLEICHER,
Barbara BRUNET-IMBAULT, Benjamin REIDIBOYM, La Danse macabre de La
Chaise-Dieu : étude matérielle et contexte de création et de conservation / 61
Johnatan MARIN GALLO, La Dança General de la muerte traduite en français :
à la recherche des origines de la Danse macabre espagnole / 78
Denis HÜE, « Car il n’est rien que la mort tant horrible », dialectique de la mort
chez Meschinot / 93

DANSES MACABRES ET SOCIÉTÉ

Philippe JUNOD, Thème et variations. L’artiste dans la Danse macabre / 113
Jörg VÖGELE, Katharina SCHULER, Luisa RITTERSHAUS, Doctors and Death.
On the Change of a Difficult Relationship (15th-21st Centuries). An Analysis on
the Basis of Selected Works from the Danse Macabre Collection Mensch und
Tod, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf / 127
Ilona HANS-COLLAS, Complainte sur les hommes des temps passés. Une œuvre
d’Elias Greither (vers 1622-1624) : sources et contexte / 143
Sophie OOSTERWIJK, The Physician and Death: Salomon van Rusting And His
Schouw-toneel des doods (1707) / 164
Georges FRÉCHET, Danse macabre de Pierre Mac Orlan et Yan Bernard Dyl / 180
Cécile COUTIN, La Table Verte de Kurt Jooss. Une Danse macabre du
XXe siècle / 197

PRATIQUES FUNÉRAIRES ET CULTURES POPULAIRES

Cristina BOGDAN, Ô Mort, où es-tu pour m’emmener ? La fable du Vieillard
et de la Mort – entre texte, image et culture populaire / 211

7
Caterina Angela AGUS, Giuliana GIAI, Une « Danse macabre » particulière :
la danse des épées entre la vie et la mort dans les villages des Alpes
cotiennes / 227
Lia GIANCRISTOFARO, Marta VILLA, The Macabre Adoration of Mummified
Children. Two Cases in Italy / 238
Astrid CAMBOSE, Hard Words, Swear Crosses and the Soul’s Journey after
Death / 254
Nicolae PANEA, Pratiques funéraires commémoratives, de l’encens à la canette
de bière / 272
Andreea COSMA, European Medievalism and Jewish Modernism in the
Peretzian Play A Night in the Old Marketplace: The Emergence of the Literary
Innovation of the Hasidic Danse Macabre / 282
Felicia WALDMAN, The Jewish Cemetery: A Place Full of Life / 295

ICONOGRAPHIE ET LITTÉRATURE AUTOUR DE LA MORT

Laura DUMITRESCU, Quelques remarques sur les représentations du charivari
dans Le Roman de Fauvel / 305
Anne LAFRAN, La mort de Judas : un théâtre macabre ? / 316
Silvia MARIN BARUTCIEFF, Weapons Against Mors Improvisa: The Alpine
Iconography of Saint Christopher after the Black Death (1350-1530) / 333
Jyrki NISSI, A Desired Place to Die: The Women of Tor de’ Specchi Providing
Religious Healing in Fifteenth Century Rome / 350
Danielle QUÉRUEL, Le Faut mourir : une dernière Danse macabre ? / 363
Yves COATIVY, Culture macabre et numismatique (XVe-milieu du XXe siècle) / 379

LA MORT ET LES PRATIQUES SOCIÉTALES

Eli BĂDICĂ, Pandemics Mirrored in Fiction: An Outline for Future Literary
Imagery / 395
Lenke KOVÁCS, The Interplay of Text and Image in the 16th-Century Majorcan
Performance of Death / 407
Monica ENGEL, Buried Alive: A Dark Fear in Times of Enlightenment! / 422
Cristina-Ioana DIMA, Les catastrophes dans les notes marginales. Le degré
zéro de l’émotion / 438
Corina CROITORU, De la danse exaltée à la marche funeste dans la poésie
roumaine de guerre / 450

ÉPILOGUE
André CHABOT, Nécropolis / 461

8
 The Physician and Death: Salomon van Rusting
and his Schouw-toneel des doods (1707)

SOPHIE OOSTERWIJK
(School of Art History, University of St. Andrews
Danses macabres dʼEurope)

Résumé
Il y a relativement peu de contributions originales néerlandaises sur
la tradition européenne des Danses macabres. Il est vrai que certains
artistes du siècle d’or néerlandais, tels que Adriaen van de Venne,
Rembrandt, Jan Lievens et Jan Steen, ont représenté des variations sur ce
thème, comme je l’ai démontré dans un article précédent, mais ce sont
tous des motifs isolés au lieu d’être des cycles complets. En 1654 De doodt
vermaskert met des weerelts ydelheyt de Geeraerdt van Wolsschaten a été
publié à Anvers, avec dix-huit illustrations de gravure sur bois attribuées
à « Hans Holbeen ». Elles en étaient dérivées dans une large mesure,
même si la deuxième édition en 1698 comportait de nouvelles gravures
sur cuivre. En 1707, le Schouw-toneel des doods avec un texte du médecin
néerlandais Salomon van Rusting a été publié à Amsterdam. Sept de ses
trente gravures réalisées par un artiste jusqu’ici inconnu sont tirées des
gravures sur bois de Hans Holbein, mais il s’agit par ailleurs d’une nouvelle
réinterprétation néerlandaise de la Danse macabre.
Van Rusting était connu des contemporains pour ses parodies et ses
écrits burlesques, avec un penchant pour l’humour scatologique. Son
Schouw-toneel, qui allie humour à un bref avertissement moral à la fin de
chaque chapitre, fut évidemment bien accueillie à l’époque : six éditions
parurent en 1707, 1726, 1735, 1741 et enfin 1801, avec en 1736 la traduction
allemande de J.G. Meintel sous le titre Schau-Platz des Todes oder Todten-
Tanz, qui a été publiée à Nuremberg. Aujourd’hui, le Schouw-toneel est à
peine connu et peu d’études y ont été consacrées. Son auteur a également
été largement oublié : déjà en 1824, sa poésie a été rejetée comme
désordonnée, insipide et peu drôle. Cet essai examine de plus près
l’auteur du Schouw-toneel, son texte et ses illustrations, et sa place dans
la longue tradition de la Danse macabre en Europe.

164
 Original Dutch contributions to the long European Danse Macabre
tradition are relatively few. It is true that some Dutch artists of the
Golden Age, such as Adriaen van de Venne, Rembrandt, Jan Lievens, Jan
Steen, depicted variations on the theme, as I demonstrated in an earlier
article1, but these were all isolated, stand-alone motifs rather than complete
cycles. In 1654 Geeraerdt van Wolsschaten’s De doodt vermaskert met des
weerelts ydelheyt was published in Antwerp, but with eighteen woodcut
illustrations attributed to ‘Hans Holbeen’ it was to a great extent
derivative, albeit that a second edition in 1698 featured new copperplate
engravings. In 1707 the Schouw-toneel des doods with a text by the Dutch
physician Salomon van Rusting was published in Amsterdam2. Although
seven of its thirty engravings by a hitherto unidentified artist are based
on woodcuts by Holbein (see Appendix), this is otherwise an independent
Dutch reinterpretation of the Danse Macabre.
Van Rusting was known among contemporaries for his parodies and
burlesque writing, with a penchant for scatological humour. His epic
Schouw-toneel, which combines humour with a brief moral warning at
the end of each long poem, was evidently well received at the time:
besides five Dutch editions in 1707, 1726, 1735, 1741 and 1801, there was J.G.
Meintel’s German translation Schau-Platz des Todes oder Todten-Tanz,
published in Nuremberg in 1736. Today the Schouw-toneel is barely
known and few studies have been dedicated to it3. Its prolific and

1
OOSTERWIJK Sophie, ‘Morbid Morality. The Danse Macabre Motif in Dutch Art of
the Golden Age’, in Ilona Hans-Collas et al. (eds), Mort n’espargne ne petit ne grant.
Études autour de la Mort et de ses Représentations, Actes du XVIIIe Congrès
international Danses macabres d’Europe, Vendôme, Éditions du Cherche-Lune, 2019,
p. 174-194, based in part on the unpublished art history dissertation ‘Macabre
Morality. Death in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Prints and Paintings’,
University of St Andrews, 2015, by Alice Zamboni, currently finishing her PhD at
The Courtauld Institute in London.
2
Digitised copy of the first (1707) edition available at http://objects.library.uu.nl/
reader/index.php?obj=1874194712&lan=en#page//21/81/41/2181416064096823066139
695243812785531.jpg/mode/1up.
3
Apart from a short section on Salomon van Rusting in KERSSEMAKERS Leo, PAGEE
Pim van, VISSER Piet (eds), MM – Dansen met de Dood. De dodendans in boek en
prent, Amsterdam, NVvA, 2000, p. 23-26, there is a brief article by DREIER Rolf P.,
MACKENBACH Johan P., ‘Lijf- en levensbehoud op het Schouwtoneel des Doods. De
dodendans van medicus Salomon van Rusting’, Nederlands Tijdschrift voor
Geneeskunde, 2012, 156, A4079, at https://www.ntvg.nl/artikelen/lijf-en-levensbe
houd-op-het-schouwtoneel-des-doods.

165
versatile author has also been largely forgotten: already in 1824 his poetry
was dismissed as messy, tasteless and not very funny4. This essay takes a
closer look at the author of the Schouw-toneel, its text and illustrations,
and its place within the long Danse Macabre tradition in Europe.

Author, publisher and artist

Salomon van Rusting (or [van] Rustingh) was born in Amsterdam
around 1652 to the painter and playwright Abraham van Rusting5.
Salomon practised as a physician and claimed to have obtained his
doctorate in medicine in Montpellier in 1674; his invention against
bruises and dislocations became known as the emplastrum Rustingii.
Until his death between 1709 and 1713 Van Rusting published several
books on medicine and surgery, as well as rhymed translations of Ovid’s
letters in exile (Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto) and parodies of Dutch
drama and classical mythology. His collected works were first published
in two parts entitled Vol-geestige werken in 1685 and 1687, followed by a
third edition in 1698 with a new second part6.
The Schouw-toneel belongs to the last years of Van Rusting’s writing
career. The author himself anticipated his readers’ surprise in his opening
lines of his Voor-reeden (Preface, p. V-X), dated 16 October 1706:
DIt Werk sal menig, als iets vremts, in d’ooren dondren;
My dunkt, al hoorde ik reets al vragen, met verwondren:
Hoe komt van Rusting aan so akelig een stof,
Als deze Doden-Dans?
(Trans.: This work will thunder as something strange in many an ear,
I think, as if I already heard them ask, with amazement:
How did Van Rusting get such nasty material
as this Dance of Death?)

4
For a literary reassessment see PEEREBOOM Marianne, ‘Salomon van Rusting:
rehabilitatie van een drekpoëet’, Literatuur, 1995, 12, p. 9-16, which discusses the
Schouw-toneel at p. 10-13.
5
For biographical information see the entry on Salomon van Rusting by KEMPER M.,
BLOEMERS J., in G.J. van Bork, P.J. Verkruijsse (eds), De Nederlandse en Vlaamse
Auteurs van Middeleeuwen tot Heden met Inbegrip van de Friese Auteurs, Weesp, De
Haan, 1985, available at https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bork001nede01_01/
bork001nede01_01_1148.php.
6
PEEREBOOM, op. cit., p. 10.

166
 Employing the humility topos familiar among medieval writers such
as John Lydgate (c.1370-c.1451), who claimed to have written his Middle
English Dance of Death poem at the instigation of some “Frensshe
clerkis”7, Van Rusting described himself as being forced into this project
by his printer:
Messieurs! Ik ben daar schier gelyk als toe gedrongen.
Myn drukker, ouder nog als ik, zag nog geen kans
In ’t graf te raken, voor hy deze Doden-dans
My opdrong, en die, uit myn bryn, en pen, zag baren.
[…]
De plaatten heeft er my de drukker toe behandigt;
Maar, tot den inhout van het rym, gants niets verstandigt.

(Trans.: Sirs! It was almost as if I were forced into it.

My printer, even older than I, did not see a chance
to enter his grave before imposing upon me
this Dance of Death, and seeing it being born from my brain and pen.
[…]
For this purpose the printer handed over to me the plates,
but without any instruction as to the content of the verses.)
The second title page identifies Van Rusting’s printer as the
Amsterdam-based bookseller Jan [Claesz] Ten Hoorn (fl. 1671-1714) ‘over
het Oude Heere Logement’ (nearby the Lord’s Hostel), a well-known
guesthouse on Grimburgwal. The actual address where Ten Hoorn ran
his bookshop and probably also a printing firm, was a house named ‘in
de Historieschrijver’ (in the History Writer) on ‘het Gebed zonder End’
(the Endless Prayer), a small street located near the city hall8.
Ten Hoorn had already published other books by Van Rusting, some
of which carried signed title pages by his regular illustrators Jan Luyken
(1649-1712) or Jan’s eldest son Casper (1672-1708)9. Although the illustrated

7
MS. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Selden Supra 53, lines 23-27, in Clifford Davidson,
Sophie Oosterwijk (eds), John Lydgate, The Dance of Death, and its Model, the
French Danse Macabre, Leiden, Brill, 2021.
8
See the information at https://spinozaweb.org/people/319, with reference to I. H.
van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse boekhandel 1680-1725, 5 vols, Amsterdam, Scheltema/
Holkema, 1960-1978, vol. 3, p. 163.
9
KLAVERSMA Nel, HANNEMA Kiki, Jan en Casper Luyken te boek gesteld: catalogus van
de boekencollectie Van Eeghen in het Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Hilversum,
Verloren, 1999, cat. 1253-1260.

167
title page (fig. 1) and thirty illustrations in the Schouw-toneel are
unsigned10, an attribution to Casper Luyken is plausible11. For Ten Hoorn
a richly illustrated popular book such as the Schouw-toneel would have
been commercially attractive, but Van Rusting’s ‘explanation’ may be just
a topos: the publisher could also have commissioned the author to write
the text first and then commissioned the accompanying illustrations
from one of regular illustrators.
A strong indication that the author did not simply write his text
to accompany existing illustrations is the last character in the Schouw-
toneel (fig. 2), for the ‘Doctoraal POET’ is clearly identified as Van Rusting
himself, aged fifty-four and hoping to live another thirty years like his
father Abraham. The main text explains:
Hy zal voortaan zo lang niet meer in ’t leven blyven,
Als hy geleeft heeft, want, wie vyftig jaren heeft,
Heeft wis de meeste tyd zyns leven al geleeft,
[…]
Hy is nu doende met zyn Doden-dans te sluiten,
Hy zelf is ’t leste deel, […]

(Trans.: He will not remain alive as long from now on

as he has lived, for whoever has lived for fifty years
has for certain lived the longest time of his life,
[…]
He is now busy to conclude his Dance of Death,
He himself is the last part, […])
Some earlier Danse Macabre cycles feature the artist responsible, e.g.
the Swiss painter and restorer Hans Hug Kl(a)uber (d. 1578) with his
family in Matthäus Merian’s printed edition of the Basler Totentanz (first
published 1621), or the painter Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (d. 1530) in the
lost Totentanz that he created in Bern in 1516-1912. However, in the

10
The Schouw-toneel is not mentioned in EEGHEN P. van, KELLEN, J.Ph. van der, Het
werk van Jan en Casper Luyken, 2 vols, Amsterdam, Frederick Muller & Co., 1905-06.
I am grateful to Nel Klaversma for this information.
11
Casper Luyken designed the title pages of two of Van Rusting’s other non-medical
books: Barbarologia, ofte boeren-latyn (1693) and Duvels leven onder de duvelen
(1694). See Klaversma, Hannema, op. cit., cat. 1253, 1255. I am grateful to Alice
Zamboni for the initial suggestion.
12
TRIPPS Johannes, ‘Den Würmern wirst Du Wildbret sein’. Der Berner Totentanz des
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch in den Aquarellkopien von Albrecht Kauw (1649), Bern,
Verlag Bernisches Historisches Museum, 2005, p. 98-99. Kla(u)ber added the two

168
Schouw-toneel it is the author and not the unnamed artist who is thus
immortalised. The engraving (fig. 2) shows the author behind his desk,
quill in hand, startled by the figure of Death who approaches with a
raised hourglass. An owl on the desk is flanked by two devils or satyrs,
one of them inspecting a urine sample, while Apollo with his lyre and Pan
with his pipes are seated in the foreground, thus illustrating the medical
and poetic aspects of Van Rusting’s career. Perhaps even the recumbent
corpse on the illustrated title page (fig. 1) represents the future state of
the author himself: the skull appears to be crowned with a laurel wreath –
traditionally a poet’s attribute – and the sarcophagus-like structure
beneath him bears the motto ‘Ick rust van myn Arbeydt’ (I am resting
from my work) above the title of the work and the author’s name.

Text and illustrations

With well over 300 pages the Schouw-toneel is a substantial work.
Each chapter is preceded by a ‘Tafreel’, a full-page illustration with the
book title in the heading, followed by the subject. Within the
surrounding border are the plate number and a brief rhyming motto or
description in italics, and underneath the image four italicised verses
with an ABAB rhyme scheme. An example is the first plate depicting
‘Adam en Eva’ or the Fall of Man (fig. 3) with the motto ‘Vertroud op God
Eert zyn gebod’ (Trust in God, Honour his command). The lines below
read:
Hier is all’t menslyk goed geboren,
En in twee Lighamen vergaard.
Maar hier is ook al’t goed verloren,
En t’Leven met de Dood gepaard.

(Trans.: Here all human goodness is born

and gathered in two bodies.
But here all goodness has also been lost
and Life coupled with Death.)
Each engraving is followed by a lengthy poem with an AABB rhyme
scheme in which satire vies with grandiloquence, and a moral message at
the very end.

scenes of his wife with their dead son and himself when he restored the Grossbasler
Totentanz in 1568.

169
 It is not unusual to find the Temptation as part of, or alongside, a
Danse Macabre cycle. It occurs also in the fresco at La Chaise-Dieu and
beneath the fresco of 1474 by Vincent of Kastav in Beram (Istria). The
slightly earlier Mors de la pomme opens with a sequence of Old Testament
scenes from Adam and Eve in Paradise to Noah and the Flood before
continuing with an actual Danse Macabre, and it also features Christ on
the Cross and two scenes of Hell13. Hans Holbein the Younger included
four Old Testament woodcuts at the beginning of his Images of Death,
first published as Les simulachres et historiées faces de la mort in Lyons
in 1538, viz. the Creation of Eve, the Temptation, the Expulsion, and Adam
tilling the soil. The Schouw-toneel opens with eight biblical illustrations
including the Flood and three Passion scenes, yet not the actual
Crucifixion (see Appendix). These eight chapters occupy nearly half the
book, but the accompanying texts cover much more biblical history than
the engravings suggest: thus the fourth chapter continues the story of
Abraham, Sarah and their descendants until the return of the Hebrews
from Egypt. In fact, much of the Old and New Testament is retold in these
chapters, sometimes with contemporary allusions: the Massacre at
Bethlehem concludes with an appeal to God to safeguard the ‘vrye
Nederlanden’ from the ‘tyranny, en moort, en plondering, en brandden!’
(tyranny, and murder, and plunder, and fires!’).
The actual Danse Macabre begins on p. 147 with the king on his
throne (fig. 4). With a strong critique of abusive royal power and stories
about the unexpected and often violent deaths of historical rulers – from
the murders of the unnamed first Roman emperor (Augustus rather than
Julius Caesar?) and Eric (II?) of Denmark to the demise of Basil (II)
Porphyrogenitus, Tamerlaan (Timur) and Darius – Van Rusting argues
that kings are powerless against death. He also concludes this chapter
with eight lines of strong Dutch republican sentiments, thanking God for
safeguarding ‘ons Nederlant’ against royal authority.
The emperor and representatives of the nobility are absent in the
Schouw-toneel, but the royal theme resumes with a royal meal (nr 12).
This scene may have been inspired by Holbein’s presentation of the king
at his table, but here we see also a crowned but bare-chested queen as
well as two other guests, and the meal features a luxury peacock pie as

13
COLOMBO TIMELLI Maria, ‘Une nouvelle édition du Mors de la pomme’, Romania,
t. 130, 2012, p. 40-73.

170
often seen in Dutch banquet still-life paintings. Again Van Rusting shows
off his classical and biblical knowledge and his awareness of more recent
history, such as the supposed poisoning of Francesco I de’ Medici in 1587,
but his text is not so much about the death of a king as about status and
the inevitability of death.
The royal meal is one of several group scenes rather than about one
particular character. It is preceded by a council meeting (nr 10) and a merry
meal and dance (nr 11), with Death playing the violin amidst an elegant
gathering as he does also for a dance of seemingly affluent peasants (nr 14),
albeit that the figure vomiting in the lower left corner underlines the less
refined nature of this particular scene. The four verses beneath the
engraving describe the ‘boertjens’ (peasants) as dancing a ‘berguemasje’,
i.e. the clumsy rustic bergamasca usually associated with clowns14.
Whereas the moral message at the end of the merry meal is a warning
against opulent excess, the stereotypical peasants become blind drunk and
violent, with fatal results.
The Schouw-toneel includes other groups, alongside single characters,
e.g. the pleading lawyers, the bride and groom, and the skaters. Familiar
from the author’s own medical practice must have been the sickbed, but
ironically the physician by the bed in the engraving is too busy studying
the patient’s urine sample to notice that Death takes instead the weeping
woman standing by15. The accompanying verses point out that ‘De ziekke
[…] wort somtyts noch weer genezen; / En’t huysgezin in’t graf gelyt’ (The
sick person is sometimes still cured, and the family laid in the grave
[instead]), but the subsequent poem offers a sometimes cynical view of
wives and families mourning the patient’s imminent death, and often
more concerned about the inheritance, whereas they may be the first to
die. The physician himself is also mocked, however:
Gy doctor, wiens verstant bestaat in schoolsche loopjes,
En in het dagelyks gebruik van Brandewyn en zoopjes,
En daardoor toont te zyn een waarlyk Philos-zoop!

14
Compare Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, i, 341, where the clown
Bottom offers Theseus and his guests ‘a Bergomask dance between two of our company’.
15
DREIER, MACKENBACH, op. cit., p. 5, misidentify the ‘veege’ in the illustration as the
maid whereas the main text indicates a wife or daughter.

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 (Trans.: You, doctor, whose wit consists of schoolish walks,
and in the daily employment of brandy and quaffs,
and by this shows himself to be a veritable Philo-sipper!16)
The Schouw-toneel does not follow the social hierarchy or
interchange of clerical and secular characters that we find in the original
French Danse Macabre. It was clearly intended for a Protestant
readership, but does include the cardinal (nr 17), who is warned by Death
in the verses beneath the illustration that his hopes of becoming
pope will not be fulfilled. The main text is actually a dialogue between
the two – an anomaly within the Schouw-toneel – full of irony, as when
the cardinal haughtily addresses Death as a ‘ketter’ (heretic) damned for
all eternity. Another Catholic character is the ‘Paap’ or papist (nr 19) –
actually a Catholic priest, but the illustration based on Holbein’s abbot
(fig. 5a) – and the author’s prejudice shows itself again in the lines: ‘O
God! verlost ons van Pastoren, die, met liegen, / En list, op hoop van gelt,
u arme volk bedriegen’ (O God! deliver us from Priests who, with lies and
tricks, and hoping for money, deceive your poor people).
The warrior, the astrologer, the old man, the pedlar, the child and
the ploughing peasant (nos. 18, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27) are stock characters, but
typically Dutch motifs are the miller and the skaters (nos. 24, 29). The
latter engraving, in which Death closely follows two skaters, may have
inspired Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), who included his own
crowded version of ‘The Skaiters’ in his satirical English Dance of Death
(1814-16)17. The sinking ship in a violent storm (no. 22), with all those on
board perishing while three merry cadavers dance on the shore in the
foreground, would also have struck a chord with the seafaring Dutch
nation. Against expectation the merchant is missing.

Precursors and models

The richly illustrated Schouw-toneel was an ambitious project that
relied in part on familiarity with earlier Danse Macabre cycles, notably
Holbein’s woodcut designs, and may have been a collaborative effort
between author, artist and publisher. One potential Dutch model or

16
The Dutch pun ‘Philos-zoop’ is tricky to translate: ‘zoop’ is a now obsolete term
for ‘draught’ or ‘quaff’, so the joke is that the doctor is not so much a philosopher as
a man who loves a drink.
17
Vol. 1, pl. 34: see http://dac-collection.wesleyan.edu/Obj12286.

172
influence predating Holbein’s woodcuts is the series of nine prints with
64 accompanying Dutch verses described as Death taking people from all
professions by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostzanen (d. 1533), a prolific painter
and graphic artist based in Amsterdam. A roll of these prints with the
artist’s distinctive monogram and the date 1509 was once in the collection
of the Spanish bibliographer and cosmographer Ferdinand Columbus
(1488-1539)18, but no copies or detailed descriptions survive, so its wider
influence is hard to gauge.
The approach to the Danse Macabre and its moralising message
changed over time, especially in Protestant culture after the Reformation19.
The 1538 edition of Holbein’s Images of Death was expanded with new
woodcuts in 1547 and 1562, frequently reprinted, and copied by many
other artists such as Wenceslas Hollar (1607-1677). It was familiar to
many Netherlandish artists: the young Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
drew his own copies of the woodcuts20. References to Holbein’s Images
of Death and other Danse Macabre editions occur in Dutch inventories
and auction catalogues throughout the seventeenth century21.
Holbein’s woodcut series was already a departure from the original
dance theme by placing the characters in their own everyday setting22,
which is also how the Schouw-toneel presents them. Typical of his time
was Holbein’s satirical portrayal of the pope surrounded by devils. The
Schouw-toneel omits the pope and turns the conventionally fat abbot into
a Catholic priest – clearly a hate figure in the Protestant Dutch Republic –

18
M C DONALD Mark P., The Print Collection of Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539).
A Renaissance Collector in Seville, 2 vols, London, British Museum Press, 2004, vol.
2, Catalogue Inventory, inv. nr 2761. I am grateful to Dr Daantje Meuwissen for
drawing my attention to this lost series of prints. A joint article by Dr. Meuwissen
and myself on this lost series is being prepared for publication.
19
DREIER Rolf Paul, Der Totentanz – ein Motiv der kirchlichen Kunst als
Projektionsfläche für profane Botschaften (1425-1650), doctoral dissertation, Erasmus
University Rotterdam, Enschede, Ipskamp Drukkers, 2010, esp. chap. 4 and 6.
20
BELKIN Kristin Lohse, DEPAUW Carl, with contributions by Michael Kwakkelstein
and Volker Manuth, Images of Death: Rubens Copies Holbein, Antwerp,
Snoeck-Ducaji & Zoon, 2000.
21
For example, the catalogue of the auction of ‘verscheyde rare en uytmuntende
Nederduytsche boecken’ from the collection of the late engraver Cornelis van Dalen
in Amsterdam on 3 June 1665 includes as quarto items 18-20 ‘Dooden-dans’ editions
by Holbein, Merian and Meyer (information provided by Alice Zamboni).
22
To an extent this is true of the illustrations in Le mors de la pomme, BnF ms.
fr. 17001.

173
but inverses Holbein’s woodcut (compare figs 5a-b), which may suggest
a different model, e.g. one of the editions published by the heirs of
Arnold Birckmann (d. 1541) between 1555 and 165723, or the Todtentanz
of c.1542/44 or c.1548 by Heinrich Vogtherr the Elder (d. 1556)24.
Apart from the ‘Paap’/abbot, six other illustrations are modelled on
Holbein’s designs to varying degrees, while a few others may have been
loosely inspired by them, e.g. the sinking ship (nr 22). The old scholar
and the astrologer (nos. 16 and 20) are similar in overall composition, but
only the latter is directly based on Holbein’s woodcut. The motif of the
vomiting peasant (no. 14) is too generic in Dutch and Flemish art to be
confidently linked to the drunken reveller in Holbein’s pl. XLIV, however.
The illustration for the child (no. 26) is an interesting case as the
composition is clearly based on Holbein’s woodcut (compare figs 6a-b),
but the boy is much older, the dress updated, the setting much grander,
and the distraught figure in the background is now the child’s father. In
the Schouw-toneel Death also wears plumes or a plumed cap, as we see
in many of its illustrations (compare figs 1, 2, 4, 7a).
A highly unusual motif in this Dutch Dance of Death is the tightrope
walker performing his act in a courtly setting with Death imitating him
(fig. 7a). The convoluted text accompanying this unprecedented character
implies criticism of princely courts where appearances matter more than
watching one’s step, as the tightrope walker must do, but it is generic
criticism. Even so, the engraving itself, and also the text to begin with,
were probably inspired by a political print by the prolific Dutch artist
Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708) published in 1689, entitled Troupe van
Royale Koordedanssers, onderhouden by’t Hof van Vrankrijk (Troupe of
royal tightrope walkers entertaining at the court of France) with a French
motto ‘Paye qui Tombe’ (fig. 7b)25. The composition of both engravings,
with the courtiers surrounding the tightrope in the centre, and the
silhouetted violinist in the left foreground, is remarkably similar. The
broadside shows the Dutch stadtholder William III – or William of Orange,
who with his wife Mary became co-monarch of England, Scotland and

23
Digitised copy by Les Bibliothèques Virtuelles Humanistes available at
http://www.bvh.univ-tours.fr/Consult/index.asp?numfiche=247
24
Digitised copy by the Münchener DigitalisierungsZentrum Digitale Bibliothek,
available at https://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0006/bsb00069027/ images/.
25
LANDWEHR John, Romeyn de Hooghe, the Etcher: Contemporary Portrayal of
Europe 1622-1707, Leiden, 1973, p. 222; http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.
COLLECT.124622, with thanks to Alice Zamboni.

174
Ireland in that year after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 – playing first
violin in the lower left corner and watching his exiled father-in-law James
II with his second wife Mary of Modena and their baby (the future Old
Pretender) tumble down, while Louis XIV of France with the Dauphin
prepare to take their turn on the tightrope on the right26. William had
died in 1702 and the Dutch Republic was without a stadtholder when the
Schouw-toneel was first published in 1707, but Louis XIV was still alive
and his war with William and the Dutch Republic was a recent memory.
Furthermore, De Hooghe’s broadside was evidently popular: it was
reissued in 1746 with a different text satirising the Young Pretender27.

Conclusion
Quite apart from its ultimately morbid contents and despite its satire, for
modern Dutch readers Salomon van Rusting’s Schouw-toneel makes
unpalatable reading with its often bombastic rhetoric, its excess of
biblical and classical allusions, and its occasional diatribes against
Catholics and Jews. Yet Van Rusting’s text was a late reinterpretation of
the Danse Macabre that was clearly successful for almost a century, even
abroad. Furthermore, its illustrations are of a good artistic standard and
combine many new designs with some derived from earlier prints,
notably Holbein’s. As such it is an important contribution to the long
European Danse Macabre tradition and deserving of further study.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Daantje Meuwissen, Judith van Gent, Nel Klaversma, and
above all Alice Zamboni for generously sharing information and ideas
with me. The translations in this essay are mine.

26
The artist satirised Louis XIV and the Catholic James II in many other prints. See
NIEROP Henk van, ‘Lampooning Louis XIV: Romeyn de Hooghe’s Harlequin Prints,
1688-89’, in Tony Claydon, Charles-Édouard Levillain (eds), Louis XIV Outside In:
Images of the Sun King Beyond France, 1661-1715, Farnham, Ashgate, 2015, p. 133-163.
27
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-3395.

175
 Appendix
List of titles/topics in the Schouw-toneel (1707) with reference to
Holbein’s woodcuts: close copies are indicated in bold.

1. Van ADAM en EVA (Fall of Man), p. 1: Holbein pl. II, but different in
design.
2. Van de ZOND-VLOED (The Flood), p. 11.
3. SODOM en GOMORRA brand, p. 21.
4. Van PHARAO, met zyn HEYR (the drowning of Pharaoh and his army,
Exodus 14:28), p. 33.
5. ’t Beloofde Land vol Moord en Brand (The promised land), p. 62.
6. BETHLEHEMS KINDERMOORT (Massacre of the Innocents), p. 69.
7. Christi Opstanding uit het Graf (Resurrection of Christ), p. 101.
8. CHRISTI HEMELVAART (Ascension of Christ), p. 142.
9. Een KONING op zijn Throon (A king on his throne), p. 147: Holbein’s
King, pl. VIII, but different in design.
10. Verbeeldende een Raats-vergaadering (A council meeting), p. 155.
11. Een Vrolyke MAALTYD (A merry meal), p. 163.
12. Een KONINGLYKE MAALTYD (A royal meal), p. 171: inspired by Holbein’s
King, pl. VIII?
13. De Zieke op ’t Bed, en de Vege daarvoor (The patient in bed, and the
doomed in front), p. 179.
14. Verbeeldende een BOEREN DANS (A peasant dance), p. 187.
15. ADVOCATEN, plytende voor de Baly (Lawyers pleading before the bench),
p. 193.
16. Verbeeldende een Weetzugttigen Ouden (An old scholar), p. 201:
loosely modelled on Holbein’s Astronomer, p. XXVII?
17. Verbeeldende een Cardinaal wandelende (A cardinal walking),
p. 209: Holbein pl. IX, but different in design.
18. Verbeeldende een KRYGSMAN (A warrior), p. 219: closely modelled
on Holbein’s Soldier, pl. XLII (1545 edition or later).
19. Verbeeldende een Paap (A papist or catholic priest), p. 227:
closely modelled on Holbein’s Abbot, pl. XIV, but inversed.
20. Verbeeldende een Astrologist (An astrologer), p. 235: closely
modelled on Holbein’s Astronomer, pl. XXVII.
21. Verbeeldende een Stok-out MAN (An old man), p. 242: closely
modelled on Holbein’s Old Man, pl. XXXIII.
22. Het blyven van een Schip (The sinking of a ship), p. 251: inspired by
Holbein’s Seaman, pl. XXX?

176
23. Verbeeldende een MARS-MAN (A pedlar), p. 235: closely modelled
on Holbein’s Pedlar, pl. XXXVII.
24. Verbeeldende een MOLENAAR (A miller), p. 269.
25. Een BRUIDEGOM en BRUID (A groom and bride), p. 273.
26. Verbeeldende een KIND (A child), p. 281: modernised version of
Holbein’s Child, pl. XXXIX.
27. Verbeeldende een Ploegende BOER (A ploughing farmer), p. 287:
largely based on Holbein’s Ploughman, pl. XXXVIII.
28. Verbeeldende een Koorde-dansser (A tightrope walker), p. 296.
29. Verbeeldende SCHAATSE RYDERS (Skaters), p. 304.
30. Verbeeldende een Doctoraal POET (A doctoral poet), p. 313.

1 2

Fig. 1. Illustrated title page of Salomon van Rusting, Het schouw-toneel des
doods (‘The theatre of death’), first edition published by Jan [Claesz] ten Hoorn,
Amsterdam, 1707.
Fig. 2. Death and the Author, in Salomon van Rusting, Het schouw-toneel
des doods, Amsterdam, 1707, pl. 30.

177
 3 4
Fig. 3. The Fall of Man, in Salomon van Rusting, Het schouw-toneel
des doods, Amsterdam, 1707, pl. 1.
Fig. 4. Death and the King, in Salomon van Rusting, Het schouw-toneel
des doods, Amsterdam, 1707, pl. 9.

5a 5b
Fig. 5a. Death and the ‘Papist’, in Salomon van Rusting, Het schouw-toneel
des doods, Amsterdam, 1707, pl. 19.
Fig. 5b. Death and the Abbot, in Hans Holbein II, Les simulachres et
historiées faces de la mort, Lyons, 1538, pl. XIV.

178
 6a 6b
Fig. 6a. Death and the Child, in Salomon van Rusting, Het schouw-toneel
des doods, Amsterdam, 1707, pl. 26.
Fig. 6b. Death and the Child, in Hans Holbein II, Les simulachres et
historiées faces de la mort, Lyons, 1538, pl. XXXIX.

7a 7b
Fig. 7a. Death and the Tightrope Walker, in Salomon van Rusting,
Het schouw-toneel des doods, Amsterdam, 1707, pl. 28.
Fig. 7b. Romeyn de Hooghe, Troupe van Royale Koordedanssers,
onderhouden by ’t Hof van Vrankrijk (Troupe of royal tightrope walkers
entertaining at the court of France), political print, 1689.

179