Adam

In 1507 Albrecht Dürer, just back from Venice, painted Adam and Eve on two tall, separate panels, the first life-size nudes by a German painter. They are in the Prado today. Cranach, court painter to the electors of Saxony, took up the format a few years later, and this Adam, painted around 1510 to 1520, is one half of such a pair. His Eve hangs beside him.

Adam stands against a black ground next to the trunk of the tree of knowledge. He has already taken the fruit. An apple on a leafy twig is in his hand, its leaves doing the work of a fig leaf, and his other hand is pressed to his chest as he glances sideways toward Eve. The limewood panel is 137 centimetres tall, a little under life size. Cranach signed it with his winged serpent on the ground beside Adam's right heel.