Adam and Eve

While closely related to Gossart’s painting of the same theme in the Royal Collection, Windsor, this version is a further development of it in every way. Eve, offering the just-plucked forbidden fruit, is still apparently the instigator of the couple’s sin, but here the erotic nature of her proposal and Adam’s reluctance are more directly conveyed by the agitated poses of the figures. Although they have not yet tasted the apple, Adam already wears a leafy covering over his sex, while Eve is totally naked and sexually provocative.

While Gossart painted the figures, a landscape specialist, and possibly an animal painter as well, completed the painting.