Cleveland Museum of Art

Arm of Eve

Date

1507

Medium

point of brush and gray and black wash, brush and gray and black wash, heightened with white gouache

Culture

Germany, Nuremberg

Department

Drawings

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Arm of Eve is the only surviving preparatory drawing for Dürer’s life-size panels of Adam and Eve in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. It is also one of the few surviving drawings by the artist made on Venetian blue paper, a support he began to use for his chiaroscuro studies while visiting Venice in the winter of 1506–7. With extraordinary economy of means, using only black and gray ink and a limited amount of wash and gouache for shading and heightening, Dürer suggested the grace and balance of the complete human form in this composition of a disembodied arm and hand. Such a study of a hand in ideal proportions cannot help but suggest the hand of the artist, a self-referential nod to his own abilities. The blue paper that Dürer used to make this drawing was a specialty of Venetian paper makers in the 16th century, who achieved the color by infusing the paper pulp with dyed fibers.

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