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A nude man and woman, both with pale, luminous skin, recline together under an apple tree in front of a deep landscape in this horizontal painting. Their bodies entwined, Adam and Eve gaze into each other’s eyes. To our left, Adam’s muscular torso faces us as his slightly bent knees, resting along the ground, come toward us. He braces his upper body on his elbow, which rests on a low, mossy rock, and he holds a small green fruit in that hand. A sprig of rounded leaves covers his genitals. He has short, tousled, copper-brown hair, dark eyes, a straight nose, and his parted lips curl in a slight smile. A wispy, ginger-brown beard lines his jaw. He looks at Eve in profile as she leans against his chest. Her torso faces away from us, and her legs are tucked under her body, so their feet nearly touch. She lightly touches his chest with the fingertips of her left hand, and she holds up a small green and red apple in her other hand. A bite has been taken from the apple. Eve’s honey-brown hair is gathered at the back of her head, and she has dark eyes, a delicate nose, rosy, rounded cheeks, and full, coral-pink lips. In the lower left corner of the painting, a brown and white cat sits near Adam’s hip and looks out at us with gold-colored eyes. A tree rises behind the pair, along the left edge of the composition, and branches with oblong, sage-green leaves and red fruit frame the couple. Upon closer inspection, a snake winds around the trunk. The snake’s body is mustard yellow and dark teal, and it has a human face with flushed cheeks and blond hair. The snake’s face looms just above Eve’s head, and it looks at or toward us. To our right of Adam and Eve, the scene opens up onto a landscape with a grassy expanse leading back to rocky mountains in the distance. Closer to us and near the right edge of the painting, a goat with almond-colored fur stands facing away from us as it turns its head back to look at the people, munching a tuft of vegetation. The head of a black goat peeks in from the right edge, also looking toward the center of the painting. Tiny in scale, an elephant, two camels, and several other animals move through the landscape near the base of the mountain. A streak of ruby red appears in the otherwise hazy blue sky, near the snake’s head. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the rock on which Adam rests his elbow: “HG AE 1616,” with the HG conjoined to make a monogram.
Hendrick Goltzius, The Fall of Man, 1616, oil on canvas, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1996.34.1

The Fall of Man

Hendrick Goltzius · 1616 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1996.34.1