The Fall of Man

1616

Hendrick Goltzius

Painter, Dutch, 1558 - 1617

A nude man and woman, both with pale, luminous skin, recline together under an apple tree in front of a deep landscape in this horizontal painting. Their bodies entwined, Adam and Eve gaze into each other’s eyes. To our left, Adam’s muscular torso faces us as his slightly bent knees, resting along the ground, come toward us. He braces his upper body on his elbow, which rests on a low, mossy rock, and he holds a small green fruit in that hand. A sprig of rounded leaves covers his genitals. He has short, tousled, copper-brown hair, dark eyes, a straight nose, and his parted lips curl in a slight smile. A wispy, ginger-brown beard lines his jaw. He looks at Eve in profile as she leans against his chest. Her torso faces away from us, and her legs are tucked under her body, so their feet nearly touch. She lightly touches his chest with the fingertips of her left hand, and she holds up a small green and red apple in her other hand. A bite has been taken from the apple. Eve’s honey-brown hair is gathered at the back of her head, and she has dark eyes, a delicate nose, rosy, rounded cheeks, and full, coral-pink lips. In the lower left corner of the painting, a brown and white cat sits near Adam’s hip and looks out at us with gold-colored eyes. A tree rises behind the pair, along the left edge of the composition, and branches with oblong, sage-green leaves and red fruit frame the couple. Upon closer inspection, a snake winds around the trunk. The snake’s body is mustard yellow and dark teal, and it has a human face with flushed cheeks and blond hair. The snake’s face looms just above Eve’s head, and it looks at or toward us. To our right of Adam and Eve, the scene opens up onto a landscape with a grassy expanse leading back to rocky mountains in the distance. Closer to us and near the right edge of the painting, a goat with almond-colored fur stands facing away from us as it turns its head back to look at the people, munching a tuft of vegetation. The head of a black goat peeks in from the right edge, also looking toward the center of the painting. Tiny in scale, an elephant, two camels, and several other animals move through the landscape near the base of the mountain. A streak of ruby red appears in the otherwise hazy blue sky, near the snake’s head. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the rock on which Adam rests his elbow: “HG AE 1616,” with the HG conjoined to make a monogram.

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In about 1600, Hendrick Goltzius, who was famous across Europe for his extraordinary abilities as a draftsman and printmaker, turned his talents to painting. In 1616 he painted this magnificent image of Adam and Eve reclining in the Garden of Eden like mythological lovers. By placing the almost life-size figures so close to the front of the picture plane, Goltzius entices the viewer to become emotionally engaged in this biblical narrative. Traditionally, images of the Fall emphasize shame, punishment, and the origins of humanity’s mortality, but Goltzius has chosen to present the event as a seduction based on physical attraction. Eve, with her back to the viewer, has already taken the first bite of the apple and turns with a knowing gaze toward Adam, who is utterly mesmerized by his companion.

Animals provide symbolical commentary. The serpent’s sweet female face represents the deceptiveness of appearances. The elephant in the distant field refers to the Christian virtues of piety, temperance, and chastity and serves as a symbolic contrast to Adam’s weakness of the flesh and infidelity to God. Goltzius included two goats, sometimes symbols for Eve, signifying a lack of chastity. The cat, representing the unjust judge, solemnly reminds viewers not to enjoy what they should condemn, lest they too cause more harm than good. Through these many symbolic references Goltzius suggests that humanity’s fall from grace is tied to Adam and Eve’s inability to restrain their physical appetites. The work exists within the classicist tradition, yet with this lavish painting Goltzius created an early example of what would be called the baroque style, a naturalistic manner of representation that depends upon the viewer’s empathetic response to fulfill its meaning.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 45

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 104.5 x 138.4 cm (41 1/8 x 54 1/2 in.)
    framed: 128.9 x 163.2 x 10.2 cm (50 3/4 x 64 1/4 x 4 in.)

  • Accession

    1996.34.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: The Fall of Man, 1616

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly Boudewijn de Man, Delft; (his sale, Delft, 15 March 1644, no. 2, as Een Adam ende Eva).[1] Possibly private collection, Amsterdam, 1671.[2] Probably (anonymous sale, Hubert and Dupuy at Salle des Grands-Augustins, Paris, 3 June 1774 and following days, no. 34, as Adam & Eve).[3] (Camillo Davico, Turin), before 1936; purchased 1936 by Prof. Mario Micheletti, Turin; acquired 1972 by private collection, Switzerland;[4] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, New York, 15 May 1996, no. 51); purchased by NGA.
[1] Owners through 1774, and the accompanying footnotes documenting the sources, are taken from the 1996 Christie's sale catalogue. Boudewijn de Man's ownership of "Een Adam ende Eva van Goltius [florins] 110" is documented in Gemeente Archief Delft, Notary archive no. 1861, deed no. 2035.
[2] Hendrik Houmes' annotation "een Adam en Eva op de cingel tot Amsterdam" is in a copy of van Mander's Het Schilder-Boeck, fol. 286 recto, preserved in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.
[3] Lot 34 in this sale is described as "Adam & Eve de Goltius, Pouc. de haut 40". It therefore measured approximately 100 centimeters in height (the width was not recorded), and it sold for 49.7 francs.
[4] The anonymous Swiss owner provided information about the ownership by Davico and Micheletti to Lawrence W. Nichols in a letter of 6 March 1984. See Lawrence Wells Nichols, "The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617)," Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1990: 185.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2000

  • Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2003

  • Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617): Drawings, Prints and Paintings, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Toledo (Ohio) Museum of Art, 2003-2004, no. 111, repro.

Bibliography

1869

  • Possibly Biscarra, Carlo F. Accademia Albertina. Turin, 1869: no. 95, possibly as "copia da Giacomo Jordaens--Adamo ed Eva originale degli Uffizi".

1990

  • Nichols, Lawrence W. "The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617)." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York,1990: 128, 142-146, 185, no. A-2.

1996

  • Yapou, Yonna. "Dutch Acquisitions in Washington." Apollo 144, no. 418 (December 1996): 20, repro.

2000

  • National Gallery of Art. Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000: 22-23, color repro.

  • Filedt Kok, Jan Piet. Netherlandish art in the Rijksmuseum, 1600-1700. Netherlandish art in the Rijksmuseum 2. Zwolle, 2000: 72-73, fig. 12b.

2003

  • Leeflang, Huigen, and Ger Luijten. Hendrick Goltzius, 1558-1617: drawings, prints and paintings. Exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio. Zwolle, 2003: 302-303, cat. no. 111.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 216-217, no. 173, color repro

  • Filedt Kok, Jan Piet. "De wisselvallige reputatie van Hendrick Goltzius." Rijksmuseum Bulletin 52, no. 1 (2004): 52-53, fig. 29.

2011

  • Liedtke, Walter. "Frans Hals: Style and Substance." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 64, no. 1 (Summer 2011): 22, color fig. 21.

2013

  • Nichols, Lawrence W. The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius, 1558-1617: A Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné. Doornspijk, 2013: 86-88, no. A-2, color pls. 53, 53a, 53b.

2014

  • Wheelock, Arthur K, Jr. "The Evolution of the Dutch Painting Collection." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 50 (Spring 2014): 2-19, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left in monogram: HG / AE 1616

Wikidata ID

Q20176961

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