Unrecorded edition and unique copy of the Dance macabre des femmes

48b La dance macabre des femmes toutes hystories & augmentee de nouveau

Paris: Jehan Treperel (II), [c. 1525-32.]

8°, 192 x 134 mm. 24 leaves:A8, B-C4, D8, front and back flyleaf.Watermarks: pot with cross (Bréguet 12496-12503?). – One column of 18 resp. 29-30 lines, printed in Treperel’s Lettre Bâtarde 97B. 42 woodcuts of 35 blocks, one decorative border. – In good condition, minimal water staining in the low edges, some edges have been carefully repaired before the edges were gilt, irregular size of leaves within one and the same quire due to originally varying size of sheets. – 20th century black morocco binding, gilt turn-ins and gilt edges, signed “Gruel”.

PROVENANCE: 1. H. P. Kraus; New York, cat. 135, Important French Illustrated Books, no. 10a. 2. Collection Otto Schäfer, Schweinfurt, OS 1031.

TEXT: The textual tradition of the Danse macabre or Dance of Death genre was, unusually, triggered by an earlier pictorial tradition.The mural of the Danse macabre with rhymed subtitles which decorated the walls of the Cimetière des Saints Innocents in Paris between 1424 and 1634 greatly contributed to the success of the subject and the spread of its iconography across France, England and Germany. The first woodcut series of the Danse macabre was printed by Guy Marchant in Paris in 1485. Although widely copied and imitated again and again, these editions are of great rarity today. In its original version women did not feature in the Danse macabre and the first appearance of the Danse macabre des femmes was as an appendix to the Danse macabre des hommes (cf. no. 48a in this catalogue). After the great success of the Danse macabre des hommes, Guy Marchant added female figures to his editions in 1486. At first he included only two illustrations, the remaining 33 woodcuts following later on, in the 1491 edition. The new text, written in French verse by Martial d’Auvergne (1430-1508), is conceived as a pendant to Marchant’s Danse macabre des hommes, and comprises a dialogue between Death and a series of women representing the various strata of contemporary society: the queen, the duchess, the abbess, the market-woman, the maiden, the pregnant woman and others each have to meet their personal and personified death. It concludes with a poem entitled l’Acteur, here implying ‘authority’ or ‘the wise man’, who is seen wearing an academic’s gown. “He is easily recognized as the representative of university and church, sitting in his study or standing in the cemetery at graveside.” (Tukey 1994, p. 12). The life of Martial d’Auvergne has thus far remained obscure, although three further important texts originate from his quill: Les Arrêts d’Amour (1460); Les Vigiles de la Mort de Charles VII (1477-80) and Les Dévotes Louanges à la Vierge Marie (first quarter of the 15th century). Tukey Harrison states that the Danse macabre des femmes, like many didactic pieces of its time, cannot stand as remarkable literature but that it is rather the unique combination of text and illustrations that makes it such an arresting social and historical document (cf. Tukey Harrison 1994, p. 2). The principal theme of the text is, of course, the inevitability of death, the great social leveller, and is intended to move its readers to repent and change their conduct in order to gain salvation. “The popularity of the subject in the arts of the late Middle Ages is well attested and usually attributed to a combination of the frequency of sudden, violent death in daily life and the psychological trauma resulting from the great plagues sweeping intermittently through western Europe from 1348 onward.“ (Tukey Harrison 1994, p. 8)

The 42 extraordinary woodcuts (c. 70 x 60 mm) accompanying this edition are characterized by somewhat archaic execution and a vivid style.The first woodcut showing the ‘Acteur’ figure, with an angel and a corpse at the bottom, appears to be unfinished, as the scroll in the hands of the two living figures lacks the introductory words of the printer which we frequently find in other editions of the Danse macabre des femmes. Because the dimensions of all the other woodcuts differ from those of the Danse macabre des hommes, it has been suggested that the widow of Jehan Treperel had the blocks cut and was the first to publish the series. However, the partly broken frames strongly indicate an earlier use of the blocks. Patrick Layet convincingly argued that the cutter used two different woodcut series, which would also explain the different sizes of the figures, as he mounted the figures of these two different series onto one stock. Layet found that all the death and skeleton figures had been extracted from the Couteau & Menard edition of the Danse macabre des hommes, whereas the female figures were taken from a calendar and the Danse macabre des femmes by Guy Marchant (cf. Layet 2000 B, pp. 35- 37).Thus, apart from the archaic expressiveness of the simple woodcuts, it is the technical process of manufacturing the illustrations in this cycle, that bears witness to a printers obligation to handle his business economically.

PRINTER: The colophon mentions the printer ‘jehan treperel’. On the grounds of compositional elements taken from the Danse macabre des hommes, this Jean must be the second of this name, because his father Jean Treperel I had died as early as 1511. Jehan Treperel II’s activity as a book dealer is documented in 1527 and 1532; Fairfax Murray, French, no. 406, however, contains a note of acquisition dated as early as 1520. The Dance macabre des femmes was originally bound with the Dance macabre des hommes (no. 48a), and could therefore very well have been published before 1527.

RARITY: Unique copy. Unrecorded in Brunet or other specialized bibliographies.

LITERATURE: Tukey Harrison 1994; Layet B 2000 (with detailed references to all relevant models).