Adam and Eve (1519): Art, History and Details

Adam and Eve (1519) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hans Baldung (German, 1484/85–1545).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In Hans Baldung’s later rendition of Adam and Eve the reduction of setting—in which the Garden of Eden is reduced to a tree—brings the focus to the bodies of Adam and Eve and their physical interaction and desire. Baldung even eliminated the serpent, instead introducing a sinister element in the near-predatory Adam, cast in deep shadow as if emerging from the darkness. With such spare imagery overall, it is the audience, by looking, that is implicated in the first couple’s original sin and guilt.

Object facts

• Title: Adam and Eve
• Date: 1519
• Creator attribution: Hans Baldung (German, 1484/85–1545)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: woodcut
• Dimensions: Image: 25.2 x 9.7 cm (9 15/16 x 3 13/16 in.); Sheet: 25.2 x 9.7 cm (9 15/16 x 3 13/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1966.6

Collection credit

Gift of the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Golden Anniversary Acquisition,” 1966, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.