The Dance of Death

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These are Dance of Death pictures by the 19th century British artist Thomas Rowlandson. The Dance of Death genre, which first appeared in the 15th century as a reaction to the Black Death, featured the figure of Death coming to claim its victims. Sometimes they were a reminder that death comes to us all, but often they were little morality tales about the end waiting for the debauched.

These images, and those after the jump, art taken from Everything Old is New Again's post The English Dance of Death: Thomas Rowlandson’s Scathing Memento Mori 1814-1816. There are more examples there, as well was the captions that accompanied the illustrations.

Thomas Rowlandson