Adam and Eve - after Albrecht Dürer

Already in late antique and medieval works of art, the first human beings created by God are depicted in their nudity, as mentioned in Genesis. The great German Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer painted them in 1507 as ideal, beautiful people who can still fulfil today's ideal of beauty. He depicts them in the moment before the Fall – before Eva bites into the insightful apple – formed or created anatomically correctly, innocent and pure, only their private parts covered by fortuitously positioned boughs. With this monumental, life-size depiction of the first humans, the painter makes a claim to universality.

We do not know which place and which patron Dürer painted the two panels for, only that they very quickly achieved great fame, were copied several times, and soon came into imperial, later royal possession; today, they have been hanging in the Prado in Madrid for more than 300 years.

In Mainz we admire two contemporary astonishing copies.