Eve

This is Eve, painted in 1528 as the companion to a panel of Adam of the same height. She stands against a dark background holding the apple, and just above her the serpent leans down out of the branches of the tree of knowledge, which fills her side of the pair. Cranach painted this subject many times, and his Eve is always the same recognisable type, small head, long limbs, pale skin, a body that owes more to courtly taste of the 1520s than to anything classical. A thin branch, held low, is all that covers her. The two panels were conceived separately but built to answer each other, Eve turning slightly toward the Adam who would stand at her side, so that her glance and the shared tree only make sense once the pair is reunited.