There are Dance of Death collections of varying sizes in many leading institutional libraries in Europe and in the United States, and private collections have been in existence ever since the first books on the subject were published. The traditional Dance of Death goes back to the Middle Ages. Later, in the sixteenth century Hans Holbein, the younger, altered the medieval concept of the Dance of Death. All men, regardless of their earthly status, are equal before it. Death confronts man capriciously and unexpectedly, seizing the king at his table, the merchant at his warehouse, the baby at his mother's breast, the nun at her prayers.
Nobody is immune, and no protest can prevail.
Holbein's influence continued into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries although the rough line of the woodcut gave way to copperplate engraving in the Baroque style, perhaps best exemplified by the work of Rudolf and Conrad Meyer in their 1650 Todten-Dantz . The nineteenth century brought about other changes in style and presentation. For more than five centuries, artists have continually explored the subject of the Dance of Death and it is the study of its iconography that originally drew me to it. Thirty five or so years ago I began buying Dance of Death books in a small way, never thinking about where or to whom I might sell them. I have managed to place some very nice books into institutional collections and have sold books to private collectors.