Musical versions appear in the work of Liszt and Saint-Saens, and a set of forty drawings on the subject was executed by Hans Holbein the Younger.
The theme was first embodied in murals and a poem in Paris's Church of the Holy Innocents before the crowning of King Charles VII. In 1485, the painter Guyot Marchant published a version in woodcuts and verse which circulated throughout Europe. Musical versions appear in the work of Liszt and Saint-Saens, and a set of forty drawings on the subject was executed by Hans Holbein the Younger. FTP name this theme based on the popular belief that the dead rose as skeletons from their graves to tempt the living into a fatal dance.
The theme was first embodied in murals and a poem in Paris's Church of the Holy Innocents before the crowning of King Charles VII.
Dance of Death or Danse Macabre or Totentanz