Adam and Eve

This pair of oil-on-panel paintings shows Adam and Eve nude beside the serpent, with a fig-like vine leaf barely covering them and a deer standing beside Adam. It is considered a copy of the pair of works on the same subject that Albrecht Dürer produced in 1507, now in the Prado in Madrid. It is dated to around 1520 and is attributed to Hans Baldung Grien, an attribution first proposed by Von Terey and Max Friedländer and now accepted by most art critics. While it follows Dürer's model faithfully, the handling is quicker and drier, and it adds details such as the deer and birds that refer to the four humours. The idealised beauty of the bodies contrasts with their fragility, linking the scene to the theme of vanitas. A very close version survives in Mainz, and the two are closely connected.

Painter

Hans Baldung Grien

Date

1507

Medium

oil paint, panel

Dimensions

212 × 85 cm

Museum

Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Genre

religious art, nude

Depicts

nudity, lion, fig leaf, waist-length hair, part, snake, couple, serpent in the Bible

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