Adam and Eve
1504
Medium
Engraving
Dimensions
9 7/8 x 7 7/8in. (25.1 x 20cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Fletcher Fund, 1919
Accession Number
19.73.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
Albrecht Dürer's *Adam and Eve* (1504) is a pinnacle of Northern Renaissance printmaking, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum Art's Drawings and Prints. This intimate engraving, measuring just 9 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches, captures the figures in the Garden of Eden moments before the Fall. Adam stands poised with muscular idealization drawn from classical antiquity, while Eve reaches toward the forbidden fruit, surrounded by a menagerie of creatures—birds, cats, rabbits, snakes oxen, and more—that evoke the paradise's harmony and latent temptation. Dürer, a German artist who bridged Italian Renaiss...
About the Artist
Albrecht Dürer · 1471–1528
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) stands as the preeminent figure of the Northern Renaissance and arguably the most influential artist in the history of printmaking. Born in Nuremberg on May 21, 1471, and dying in the same city on April 6, 1528, Dürer revolutionized the status of the artist in Northern Europe, transforming printmaking from a commercial craft into an independent fine art and establishing ...