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Look closely at the white and dark strokes that curve around the forearm, then find the date 1507 and Dürer’s monogram at the right.
This arm holding an apple is the only preparatory drawing that survives for Dürer’s life-size paintings of Adam and Eve, now in the Prado in Madrid. He drew it in 1507 with brush, ink and white gouache on blue Venetian paper, which he took up while in Venice in the winter of 1506 to 1507. The roundness of the arm is built from fine curved strokes of dark ink and white.
point of brush and gray and black wash, brush and gray and black wash, heightened with white gouache · Sheet: 34.4 x 26.7 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Northern Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Arm of Eve
- Artist
- Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528)
- Date
- 1507
- Medium
- point of brush and gray and black wash, brush and gray and black wash, heightened with white gouache
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 34.4 x 26.7 cm (13 9/16 x 10 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Gift of Alan Kennedy
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1471–1528
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.