The Expulsion from Paradise (c. 1606): Art, History and Details

The Expulsion from Paradise (c. 1606) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jan Wierix (Flemish, c. 1549–after 1615).

The work and its context

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

Originally this exquisite sheet belonged to a series of 21 drawings by the Antwerp artist Jan Wierix illustrating the creation and early history of man as recounted in Genesis. In this scene, an angel casts Adam and Eve out of paradise for their transgressions. Precious in its delicate pen strokes and careful detail, the drawing describes Eden as a microcosm populated by an array of animals whose tranquility is in the midst of being interrupted by human actions. Pen and ink drawings on vellum such as this were prized by collectors, who valued them as miniature paintings to be displayed in albums and sometimes framed on the wall.

Object facts

• Title: The Expulsion from Paradise
• Date: c. 1606
• Creator attribution: Jan Wierix (Flemish, c. 1549–after 1615)
• Culture: Flanders
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Pen and brown ink on parchment
• Dimensions: Sheet: 9.5 x 12.4 cm (3 3/4 x 4 7/8 in.); Image: 9 x 11.9 cm (3 9/16 x 4 11/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Flemish
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1994.16

A detail from the museum

This artist's version of the Garden of Eden includes a turkey, a bird that was unknown in Europe until the 16th century, when it was imported from the Americas.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Van de Velde, Carl. Jan Wierix: The Creation and the Early History of Man : 1607-1608. New York: Richard L. Feigen, 1990.
• Bellinger, Katrin and Harald Weinhold. Jan Wierix, 1549-Antwerp-1620: Nine Drawings from the Creation and the Early History of Man. München: Katrin Bellinger Kunsthandel, 1993.
• Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000.

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.