[ETCHINGS]. [WORLD WAR I]. [SMITH, Percy Delf (1882-1948), illustrator]. The Dance of Death 1914-1918. Seven Etchings by Percy Smith. [1914-1919]. Folio sheets, each approximately 18 1/2 x 15 1/2". With title-leaf and blank. Complete with all seven etchings, each etching in publisher's mount. Housed in publisher's portfolio with silk ties. ONE OF ONLY 100 SETS, EACH ETCHING SIGNED AND CAPTIONED BY SMITH, WITH "Of 100 proof only of each plate: Set No. 28 Percy Smith" WRITTEN IN INK BY SMITH ON THE TITLE-LEAF. The etchings are titled as follows: Death Forbids, Death Marches, Death Awed, Death Refuses, Death Waits, Death Ponders, Death Intoxicated. "The Great War produced its harvest od etchings and lithographs of trenches, craters, barbed wire, shattered houses and blasted trees; but most of them were literal representations of things seen. Mr. Percy Smith, with imagination rare among English etchers, and akin to that of the draughtsmen of the northern Renaissance, combines with his sympathetic treatment of the soldier marching or fallen, crippled, maimed and agonised, the vision of an awful Presence, relentless, patient, callous, exultant 'awed' in a single etching that can never be forgotten, by one culminating horror. 'The Dance of Death, 1914-1918,' is not a pretty set of etchings, but it is one of the most serious and memorable works of art inspired by the War." (Campbell Dodgson, C. B. E., Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, Print Collector's Quarterly 8, 1921, pp. 324-325).
 

Some toning, offsetting to title leaf, some mild toning to etchings and mounts; some toning, wear, mild scuffing and soiling to portfolio. Fine.