
The Fall of Man
<p>In this scene from the biblical story of Adam and Eve, Eve is tempted by the serpent above her head to pluck forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. By consuming the fruit, Adam and Eve disobey God, who punishes them with toil, pain, mortality, and exile from Eden. Lucas Cranach here emphasized Eve’s responsibility for the Fall by depicting her as dominant over Adam and the animals in Eden. Eve stands over her submissive husband, supplying him with fruit while encircling his effeminately rounded shoulders with her arm.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1509
- Dimensions
- Image/block/sheet: 34.5 × 24 cm (13 5/8 × 9 1/2 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
Artist

Painting
Lucas Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose cause he embraced with enthusiasm. He was a close friend of Martin Luther, and eleven portraits of that reformer by him survive. Cranach also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He continued to paint nude subjects from mythology and religion throughout his career.
Full artist profile →More
More by Lucas Cranach the Elder
Venus with Cupid the Honey Thief
1575 · Oil on oak panel
The Apostles' Creed (Das Symbolum der Heiligen Aposteln)
1548 · Book with fifteen woodcuts with letterpress in black on cream laid paper, in eighteenth-century full brown sheepskin, sewn on raised bands, with gold tooled decoration on inner-edges of boards, blind lines and gold titling on the spine, hand-sewn silk headbands, marbled endsheets, and a purple silk page marker
The Crucifixion
1538 · Oil on panel
The Nymph of the Spring
1537 · oil on panel
The Crucifixion with the Converted Centurion
1536 · oil on panel
Madonna and Child
1535 · oil on panel
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Year
- 1509
- Dimensions
- Image/block/sheet: 34.5 × 24 cm (13 5/8 × 9 1/2 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1509-076161
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





