Adam and Eve (Dürer)

Adam and Eve

Artist	Albrecht Dürer
Year	1507
Medium	Oil on panel
Dimensions	Two panels, each 209 cm × 81 cm (82 in × 32 in)
Location	Museo del Prado, Madrid

Adam and Eve is a pair of oil-on-panel paintings by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer.

Completed in 1507, the work followed a 1504 copper engraving by Dürer on the same subject, one which offered Dürer the opportunity to depict the ideal human figure. Painted in Nuremberg soon after his return from Venice, the panels were influenced by Italian art. Dürer's observations on his second trip to Italy provided him with new approaches to portraying the human form. Here, he depicts Adam and Eve at human scale—the first full-scale nude subjects in German painting.

Adam and Eve's first home was the Prague Castle, the property of collector Rudolf II. During the Thirty Years' War, armies plundered the castle and the panels came to be owned by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. His daughter, Christina, gave the work to Philip IV of Spain in 1654. Later King Charles III ordered in 1777 that the painting be hidden in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. It arrived at its current home, Madrid's Museo del Prado, in 1827, but was not publicly displayed until 1833.

See also

• Adam and Eve (Lucas Cranach the Elder)

Sources

• Nürnberg, Verlag Hans Carl. Dürer in Dublin: Engravings and woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer. Chester Beatty Library, 1983

Albrecht Dürer
Paintings	Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents (1490) Portrait of Frederick III of Saxony (1496) St. Jerome in the Wilderness (c. 1496) Portrait of Dürer's Father at 70 (1497) Haller Madonna (c. 1498) Lamentation of Christ (attributed, c. 1498) Portrait of Oswolt Krell (1499) Portrait of Elsbeth Tucker (1499) Seven Sorrows Polyptych (c. 1500) Lamentation of Christ (c. 1500) Adoration of the Magi (1504) Bagnacavallo Madonna (before 1505) Christ among the Doctors (1506) Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman (1505) Feast of the Rosary (1506) Avarice (1507) Adam and Eve (1507) Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508) Life of the Virgin (1510–1511) The Suicide of Lucretia (1518) Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I (1519) Portrait of Jakob Fugger (c. 1520) Portrait of a Man (1521 or 1524) Portrait of Bernhart von Reesen (1521) Saint Jerome in His Study (1521) The Four Apostles (1526) Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher (1526) Portrait of Jakob Muffel (1526) Virgin of the Pear (1526)
Self-portraits	Self-Portrait at the age of 13 (drawing, 1484) Self-Portrait c 1492 (drawing, 1492) Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle (1493) Self-Portrait at 26 (1498) Self-Portrait at 28 (1500)
Still life / nature	View of Arco (1495) Three Linden Trees (c. 1494) The House by the Pond (c 1497) Young Hare (1502) Little Piece of Turf (1502) Great Piece of Turf (1503) Wing of a European Roller (1512) Rhinoceros (1516)
Woodcuts and engravings	The Child Jesus Holding the Globe (1493) Dürer's Wife Agnes (1494) The Holy Family with the Dragonfly (1495) The Muse Thalia (1495–96) Angel with a Lute (1497) Apocalypse (1498) Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon (1498) The Four Witches (1497) The Sea Monster (1498–1500) Saint Sebastian at the Column (1500) Visitation (1503) Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate (1504) Knight, Death and the Devil (1513) Melencolia I (1514) Saint Jerome in His Study (1514) Triumphal Arch (1515) Head of a Walrus (1514) Large Triumphal Carriage (1522)
Drawings	Madonna of the Animals (c. 1503) Praying Hands (c. 1508) Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63 (1514)
Altarpieces	Dresden Altarpiece (c. 1496–1497/1503–1504) Paumgartner Altarpiece (c. 1500) Jabach Altarpiece (c. 1503–1504) Heller Altarpiece (c. 1508) Adoration of the Trinity (1511)