TheSterb-Spiegel: A Fashionable Eighteenth-Century Dance of Death

Abstract

In 1704, Abraham Gugger of Augsburg published a ‘Dance of Death’, whose lengthy German title is best abbreviated as Sterb-Spiegel. Only five acknowledged copies exist. Originally the work of brothers Rudolph Theodor and Conrad Meyer of Zürich, the first iteration of the Sterb-Spiegel had appeared in 1650. The posthumous 1704 version, re-engraved by an unknown artist, differs in one essential regard: the clothing of Death's victims has been modernized to represent the fashions of the beginning of the eighteenth century. The illustrations show that death comes to everyone, represented by the different victims at work, home and play in appropriate settings. The Sterb-Spiegel thus depicts the clothing in context and in ‘action’, and further represents all levels of early eighteenth-century society, divided into the ‘Ruling Class’, and the ‘General Home and Worldly Positions’. All are appropriately attired, and the Sterb-Spiegel accurately portrays non-elite garb and accessories. The Mercure Galant had ceased issuing regular fashion plates in the 1680s, and the Mercure de France resumed consistent publication of current styles only in the 1720s; the Sterb-Spiegel, even though it was not the original intention, provides contemporary insights into early eighteenth-century fashions when documentation is relatively sparse.