Adam en Eva en de Dood 1543

Sebald Beham made this engraving of Adam and Eve in 1543, and it presents us with a particularly gruesome vision of the Fall. Here we see Adam and Eve, not with the tempter, but with Death himself, his skeletal form entwined with the serpent who offers the forbidden fruit. This image was made in the context of the Reformation in Germany. As a visual and printmaker, Beham would have been keenly aware of the politics of imagery. Biblical subjects were ripe for reinterpretation in this age. Was this image Protestant propaganda? Was it simply a meditation on morality and the inevitability of death? Or was Beham using this image to make a broader statement about humanity's place in the world? The historian is invaluable to understanding how this work functions in its time. By examining the social, religious, and political context of its creation, and looking at other works by Beham, we can better understand what this image may have meant to its original audience.