Adam

Adam was never meant to be seen on his own. This narrow oak panel was the outside of a folding altarpiece, the small St John triptych whose other parts hang in the same room, and when its wings were shut Adam and his partner Eve were what the worshipper faced. Around 1650, in the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the outer panels were taken off so that each figure could hang as a separate picture, and that is how they have stayed. Memling painted them in Bruges around 1485 to 1490. The panel is only about 17 centimetres wide, and Adam fills it from edge to edge. Putting the first man and woman on the closed wings was a familiar Netherlandish choice, with the story of the fall shown first and the Virgin and saints inside revealed only when the altar was opened.