The Ploughman (Danse Macabre)

In a rural landscape, a peasant wearing a brimmed hat and simple tunic leans forward to guide a heavy plow pulled by a team of two horses. Between the horses and the plow, a skeletal figure of Death, shown in profile and wearing a shroud, brandishes a whip over the horses to urge them forward. The scene is set in an open field under a sunburst above a distant hill with a church; a second smaller figure is visible in the background, possibly sowing seed. The woodcut uses stark black-and-white lines to emphasize the muscular tension of the horses and the weary posture of the farmer.

This image is part of Holbein's 'Les Simulachres & Historiees Faces de la Mort', a foundational series that modernized the medieval 'Danse Macabre' tradition by emphasizing the social universality of death, where even the laborer is interrupted by mortality.