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Adam and Eve
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With its large size and intricate design, Adam and Eve is one of his Dürer's masterpieces of engraving. Produced in 1504, about a decade after his first trip to northern Italy from 1494-1495, it shows Dürer's exposure to Italian art. Adam's posture and proportions recall the so-called Apollo Belvedere, a sculpture unearthed in Rome in 1489. Heralded as the supreme model of male beauty, within a decade of its discovery images of the sculpture were widely disseminated among artistic communities in Renaissance Italy. Although Dürer never visited Rome and could not have actually seen the sculpture, he must have been aware of it through a drawing seen during his first Italian sojourn. His appreciation for the principles of Renaissance art is also apparent in the musculature of Adam's torso which is rendered using dots and flecks created by the burin, an Italian engraving style. In contrast, the dense and dark background is rendered in a markedly northern Gothic style.
- Artist
- Albrecht Dürer
- Title
- Adam and Eve
- Date
- 1504
- Object Type
- Medium
- Engraving
- Dimensions
- 9 15/16 x 7 11/16 in. (25.3 x 19.6 cm)
- Credit Line
- Gift of Thomas Carr Howe, Jr.
- Accession Number
- 1953.42