Adam and Eve
by REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn, Etching, second state of two, 162 x 116 mm
Catalogue number: Bartsch 28.
In this etching Rembrandt depicts Adam and Eve in an encounter with a serpent that seems to personify the Evil.
In contrast to Gospel subjects, which he invested with an air of the miraculous, Rembrandt often treated Old Testament events in a down-to-earth manner, as ordinary episodes from human history. Adam and Eve’s naturally imperfect bodies may have been borrowed from the beggars he often sketched in the poor quarters of Leiden.