The Garden of Eden

Title

The Garden of Eden

[Christie's online database: https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5287765; accessed 24.02.2020]

Painting on wood

Medium

Painting on wood

[Christie's online database: https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5287765; accessed 24.02.2020]

The scene is set in a forest clearing where Adam and Eve recline beneath the Tree of Knowledge. Eve is caught in the act of handing an apple to a perplexed Adam. Entwined around the tree's trunk, the serpent with a female torso and head looks on as Adam succumbs to temptation. Behind them in the middle distance is a vine heavily laden with fruit and a small pool of water. A rich menagerie of birds and animals - a stag, a hind, a roe-buck, a moose, sheep, a bear with its mate, a lion, horses, a wild boar and a hound, as well as two pheasants and a partridge with her chicks - completes this seductive vision of Paradise.

[cda 2020]

Attribution: Workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder

Attribution

Workshop Lucas Cranach the Elder

[Christie's online database: https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5287765; accessed 24.02.2020]

Production date: about 1530

Production date

about 1530

[Letter D. Koepplin to De Jonckheere, Paris; Koepplin Archive, 16.11.2010]

Dimensions: Dimensions of support: 50.8 x 38.1 cm (20 x 15 in.)

Dimensions

Dimensions of support: 50.8 x 38.1 cm (20 x 15 in.)
[Christie's online database: https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5287765; accessed 24.02.2020]

Signature / Dating: Artist's insignia on the trunk of the tree: serpent with elevated wings, facing left

Signature / Dating

Artist's insignia on the trunk of the tree: serpent with elevated wings, facing left

Inscriptions and Labels: none

Inscriptions and Labels

Inscriptions, Badges:

none

Owner: Private Collection
Repository: Private Collection

CDA ID: PRIVATE_NONE-P324
FR (1978) Nr.: FR-none
Persistent Link: https://lucascranach.org/en/PRIVATE_NONE-P324/

Provenance

the property of a New York family
sold by Christie's, New York, Sale 2282, 27.01.2010, lot 315
[Christie's online database: https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5287765; accessed 24.02.2020]
aquired by De Jonckheere, Paris
[Letter De Jonckheere, Paris to D. Koepplin; Koepplin Archiv, 02.09.2010]

Research History / Discussion

'The present painting appears to be a composite of several motifs found in works by Lucas Cranach the Elder. While there are no exact matching compositions in the oeuvre of Cranach or his workshop, a number of related elements can be in found in renditions of the same subject, such as the much larger panel in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (oil on panel, 31 7/8 x 44 7/8 in. [AT_KHM_GG3678]). The quality of certain passages in the present panel are extremely accomplished and close to Cranach himself, in particular the attenuated modeling of the figures and the naturalistic treatment of the animals.'

[Christie's online database: https://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5287765; accessed 24.02.2020]

The Garden of Eden, about 1530

Images

Conservation History

Date2010 -

Surface cleaning

[Letter De Jonckheere, Paris to D. Koepplin; Koepplin Archiv, 02.09.2010]

Citing from the Cranach Digital Archive

Entry with author: <author's name>, 'The Garden of Eden', <title of document, data entry or image>. [<Date of document or image>], in: Cranach Digital Archive, https://lucascranach.org/en/PRIVATE_NONE-P324/ (Accessed {{dateAccessed}})
Entry with no author: 'The Garden of Eden', <title of document, data entry or image>. [<Date of document, entry or image>], in: Cranach Digital Archive, https://lucascranach.org/en/PRIVATE_NONE-P324/ (Accessed {{dateAccessed}})

Help us to improve the Cranach Digital Archive.

Please contact us, if you have noticed a mistake.