Adam and eve brilliantly combines devotional meaning with pictorial elegance and invention. The scene is set in a forest clearing where eve stands before the tree of knowledge, caught in the act of handing an apple to a bewildered adam. Entwined in the tree's branches above, the serpent looks on as adam succumbs to temptation. A rich menagerie of birds and animals - a stag, a hind, a sheep, a roe-buck with its mate, a lion, a wild boar and a horse, and partridges, a stork and a heron - completes this seductive vision of paradise. On the tree-trunk are the date 1526 and the bat-winged serpent which formed part of cranach's coat of arms. The painting is particularly admired for its treatment of the human figure and for the profusion of finely painted details, including animals and vegetation. Cranach delights in capturing details such as the roe-buck catching its reflection in the foreground pool of water. Object Type: painting. Genre: religious art. Date: 1526. Dimensions: height: 117.1 cm (46.1 in) ; width: 80.8 cm (31.8 in). Medium: oil on maple wood and on panel. Depicted People: Adam and Eve, Adam, Eve. Collection: Courtauld Gallery. Adam and Eve (UK CIA P-1947-LF-77)
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