Adam and Eve

Cleveland Museum of Art

Adam and Eve

Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-91cf98b472c5

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Albrecht Dürer’s iconic engraving was hugely impactful to the spread of natural symbolism in Europe. Drawing upon Classical sculptural models, he represented Adam and Eve in perfect, uncorrupted beauty moments before tasting the forbidden fruit. The tree of knowledge, with its writhing serpent, is a fig tree, and the tree of life, which Adam clasps, a mountain ash, native to Northern Europe. The elk, rabbit, cat, and ox are symbols of the four human temperaments—melancholic (gloomy), sanguine (sensual), choleric (cruel), and phlegmatic (slothful)—in perfect balance. But the cat and mouse hint at aggression to come, and the parrot, appearing like a beacon in the dark northern forest, heralds the promise of the Virgin Mary (the new Eve). Albrecht Dürer set the Garden of Eden in a northern forest, with the tree of knowledge represented by a fig tree and the tree of life, a mountain ash.

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record

Medium
engraving
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund
Type of artwork
Print
Department
Prints

Also in Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. The museum’s own label for these fields has not been confirmed yet, so each is named by its field in the museum’s data.

creation_date
1504

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

From LinkedCulture

In 1504, Albrecht Dürer signed this engraving with his full Latin name, announcing it as a deliberate masterwork. Adam clasps a branch of mountain ash while Eve reaches for the forbidden fruit from a serpent coiled around a fig tree, and at their feet a cat poised over a mouse hints at the aggression the Fall will unleash. The four animals below them represent the human temperaments held in perfect, fragile balance, a harmony that is seconds away from shattering forever.

Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.

What the image shows

Adam and Eve stand in a forested area, holding hands and surrounded by animals.

Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.

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The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.DMITpOJkJA_-ot4i.X0VakQfH58ZYTf8xh4y-B1uWDP6DuNO1bkqhAE_lF6-i5JRIHX1wbsCvwU0zdYv4I9vccfSpABcnnfY9i8hQb1F4--5HR8Ht4nYzI2T7kh80n5EXDRHwBFtobHPt4XgHgd2rrAkVw7DpuFzFb6CF7vHzCW9wUP_gJjfQ8IjwMMHs0pQLcjtGlM3nlwHzQHy4EnIgsqXSAHdLYF3jUE80_GHSOBxDgWULP66KHefS5yuNc-JBcUjpsujXZDIHPL7uVD4OGu8T3bYbLfnMiI07f5kD2mFedeGGQIi0ZwLo_rX4kuMalgSee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.K5Ezq2RafJu4_2gg.G4ovuQGC3nXZ9TMAn21OY43SQSaAyoKiSoF128ix5fGYSjUoGxebDZRQn2gOY6roaJivS1SECP2hY7z_7jFwxRfyGYgSCa0RrdNwRSD8deiddBtXGKeNDmMI2IJkEWoT9NpvVBWm0meOW6GQOVcL0nCRRU3FGi8wK4ilwunWAJMkoY3syUwe4SOwrej-rkV9zA0xXtfnyQxAkS0SBu1CaL9MiCc8yFW48c13cCw49s8sSZhGQx4sWL5oCtOFe6q5qtop-asew8eKgGZqgRLGNDjdpk3lrItl8KmHAfmOrA
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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Provenance
-1944: Ex. Coll., British Museum (Lugt 300), duplicate (Lugt 305)
How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Cleveland Museum of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
123964
Object Type
Print
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Type of artwork” · copied as is
Creator
Albrecht Dürer
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creators (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Artist-role creator's description with life dates removed.
Culture
Germany, early 16th Century
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
engraving
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Medium” · copied as is · Cleveland's 'technique' field holds materials.
Department
Prints
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Tags
  • male
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field artists_tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Credit Line” · copied as is
Provenance
-1944: Ex. Coll., British Museum (Lugt 300), duplicate (Lugt 305)
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Provenance” · copied as is
Date
1504
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
Begin Year
1504
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_earliest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
End Year
1504
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_latest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

LinkedCulture video

Adam and Eve

Oct 28, 2026 · Short

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Museum record

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