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The bones of all men: Holbein's
Dance of Death (Gemmell 1) |
" - I love dispatch, I strike at once
The wit, the wise, the fool, the dunce;
The steel-clad soldier, stout and bold,
The miser, with his treasured gold.."
William Combe, The English Dance of Death
This web display focuses on one of our smallest yet most
intriguing
collections. Its books are all concerned with the Dance of
Death. This grisly motif typically features decaying corpses
or skeletons who lead the living in a dance to their demise. The
dance represents all members of society, from the wealthy and
powerful to the innocent and humble, meeting their end at the
hands of Death.
Brought together by William Gemmell (1859-1919), a
Glasgow doctor, the original collection has been augmented to form
a corpus of some 150 items on this theme. These books comprise original works as well as
critical commentary, spanning several hundred years of the Dance
of Death tradition. With its macabre theme and ghoulish
imagery, the Gemmell collection is of potential interest to a wide
spectrum of researchers, particularly in the fields of
art, history and literature.
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Detail from frontispiece to
Rowlandson's English Dance of Death
(Gemmell 21) |
Detail from Richard
Dagley's Death's Doings
(Gemmell Add. 50) |
Detail from frontispiece to
Van Rusting's Dance of Death
(Gemmell 10) |
| The Gemmell Collection is often
overshadowed by one of our more well known collections, the
larger
Stirling Maxwell
Collection of emblem books. Emblems are a Renaissance
form of didactic illustration and text designed to impart a
moral message. The Dance of Death, however, may be said to
be a subset of emblem art; the two collections therefore
complement each other to form a wonderful resource for
students of the text/image genre. |
| The 76 items in the original collection were
bequeathed to Glasgow University Library upon the death of William Gemmell in 1919. Gemmell, a respected doctor and
magistrate, was raised in Glasgow and graduated from Glasgow
University. He practiced medicine at the Royal Infirmary, as
well as City Fever hospitals. He later set up a practice in
London and retired early after 17 years in the medical
profession. With his leisure time, he returned to
archaeological and historical pursuits. He investigated local
history, and was active in several esteemed historical
societies. He even found time for local politics, where his
interest in literature and history saw him selected for the
Convernership of the Libraries Committee.
It is not known why
Gemmell originally chose to build up his Dance of Death
library although, as a doctor, he was obviously intimately
preoccupied with trying to prevent Death. Whatver his
motivation, he remembered his alma mater in his will with his
bequest of the collection to the University. The collection
has subsequently been augmented by selective purchases,
including some secondary source material on the topic.
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Dr. William Gemmell (Gemmell Add. 59) |
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Detail from S.
M. 1655 Rentz's
Dance of Death |
Detail
from Gemmell 13 Meyers'
Dance of Death |
An
illustration
to Gemmell Add. 50
Dagley's Death's Doings
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This exhibition examines the origins of this captivating theme
and its journey into print format, from its original
conception at the hands of Hans Holbein, through its many
reincarnations. The following pages bring together some of the
highlights of the Gemmell collection for the first time, covering almost
500 years of the Dance of Death in print.
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Acknowledgements:
Janet Barnes
Hans Holbein's Dance of Death
(Exhibition Guide) Sheffield: Ruskin Gallery [c. 1994] Not available in
library
Andrew
Breeze "The Dance of Death"
Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 13 (Summer 1987) pp. 89-96 Level 8
Main Library Gen
Hum Pers CA550
vol. 13-16
James Midgley Clark Dance of Death in the Middle
Ages and Renaissance Glasgow: Jackson, 1950
Level 11
Main Lib Fine Arts A7720 CLA
Marcia Collins The Dance of Death in Book
Illustration, Catalog to an Exhibition of the Collection in the
Ellis Library of the University of Missouri-Columbia 1978
Not available in library
Frances Douce The Dance of Death
London: William Pickering, 1833
Level 12
Spec Coll Sp Coll Gemmell 34
Fritz Eichenberg Dance of Death: a graphic
commentary on the danse macabre through the centuries New
York: Abbeville Press, c. 1983
Level 11
Main Library Fine Arts A7720 EIC
William Gemmell Gemmell Collection on
the Dance of Death, Chronological List with full descriptive and
biographical notes 1919
Level 12
Spec Coll Sp Coll Gemmell Add. 59 [this includes a
biographical note signed "R.M.B." from which the information about
Gemmell above has been taken]
Werner L. Gundersheimer "Introduction"
A Complete Facsimile of the Original 1538 Edition New York:
Dover Publications, 1971 Not available in library
Patrick Pollefeys Dance of Death web pages
www.lamortdanslart.com/danse/dance.htm 1998-2006 [pages
accessed November 2008]
This web exhibition was researched and created by Aimee Cook,
Graduate Trainee on placement in Special Collections; work was
originally undertaken in November 2008 and the completed web
exhibition published in April 2009.
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Go to next section: The
origins of the Dance of Death
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