In this drawing Dürer works out the position of Adam’s hand, in a series of preliminary enquiries for his ambitious engraving of the first humans just before the Fall of Man. At this stage he is experimenting with different alternatives: Adam is either empty-handed or holds the apple which he has just been given by Eve. The final print shows Eve taking the apple from the serpent’s mouth – emphasizing the moment of temptation. Although apparently drawn from life, the model for Adam adopted the pose of the famous classical statue the Apollo Belvedere. Dürer’s enquiring gaze even picks up the veins of the model’s arm, but the figure is left without a face as the artist focuses in on the instrument of humanity’s downfall: the grasping hand.
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