Adam and Eve, from the Small Passion, copy

Description

Adam and Eve, from the Small Passion, copy introduces the story of humanity’s first parents into a sequence associated with Christ’s suffering and redemption. The Metropolitan Museum of Art catalogs this undated woodcut as after Albrecht Dürer and also names Johann Mommard. The copy therefore retains both its connection to Dürer’s design and its separate catalog identity.

The subject places the beginning of the biblical story alongside the events that follow in the Small Passion cycle. Adam and Eve represent a starting point for themes of temptation, human choice and the need for redemption. The woodcut’s graphic language gives the narrative a direct visual form, suited to a series meant to be read through successive scenes. Its meaning grows from that relationship between an individual episode and the larger religious story.