"Adam and Eve"

Original etching.

• Plate dimensions (excluding margins): 12.5 x 8 cm

• Dimensions with margins: 17 x 12 cm

• Signed lower right

• Numbered 2/4

• Titled

Critical analysis

In this etching, the artist offers a symbolic, almost allegorical reimagining of the biblical myth of Adam and Eve, set within an architectural evocation of Prague, explicitly inscribed as "Praga Bohemiae Metropolis accuratissime expressa."

Composition and symbolism

Two nude figures, male and female, stand on either side of a Gothic edifice (likely referencing Prague’s Town Hall or its astronomical clock). Sculptural in form, these figures embody both the physicality of the human body and the timeless allegory of original humanity.

The male figure holds a sphere in his right hand—possibly the apple of knowledge, or a globe symbolizing fate or dominion. The female figure stands in a more static, ceremonial posture, her exaggerated features rendered with almost anatomical precision. Her Elizabethan ruff adds a layer of historical artifice that contrasts sharply with her primal nudity.

The intricate Gothic architecture in the background evokes continuity and permanence, in stark contrast with the vulnerability and temporality of the human body. The sensuality of the figures is counterbalanced by a meticulous, almost clinical rendering that suggests a deeper meditation on the origins of morality, spirit, and Western civilization.

Interpretation

This is no Edenic paradise: the etching situates Adam and Eve not in a garden, but in a city. Prague becomes a metaphor for postlapsarian humanity—a site of memory, knowledge, beauty... and oblivion. The work probes the tension between flesh and culture, sin and understanding, the transient and the eternal.