The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

**Recent conservation funded by a grant from the Bank of America Art Conservation Project.** The Tuscan painter Domenico Passignano led a successful career in Florence and Rome during the Counter-Reformation. At this time, the Catholic church prized paintings with a clear message that inspired devotion in viewers. Passignano’s naturalistic style lent itself to these goals. The sensual, earthy treatment of Adam and Eve’s bodies, the meticulously rendered fig leaves covering their nakedness, and the lush landscape of Eden add immediacy. Beneath the fluttering, sword-yielding angel who expels them from Paradise, Adam and Eve seem to despair to the point of physical pain. For their sin of tasting the apple, suffering has entered the world: women are condemned to painful childbirth and men must toil in the fields for bread. Before Adam’s feet is the serpent who tempted Eve with the apple from the tree of knowledge; it is cursed to move upon its belly and eat dust. The meaning of the work is plain: God is omniscient and sinners are punished. This painting was commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII (reigned 1623–1644). The Barberini enriched their family fortune during Urban’s rule and built one of the leading art collections in Rome. The picture remained with descendants of the Barberini family into the 21st century. Italy, Europe