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Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Hendrick Goltzius
Dutch, 1558 - 1617

The Fall of Man

1616
oil on canvas
overall: 104.5 x 138.4 cm (41 1/8 x 54 1/2 in.)
framed: 128.9 x 163.2 x 10.2 cm (50 3/4 x 64 1/4 x 4 in.)
Inscription: lower left in monogram: HG / AE 1616
Patrons' Permanent Fund 1996.34.1

ENTRY

In this magnificent image, Adam and Eve recline like mythological lovers in the
Garden of Eden, portrayed at the very moment they become aware of their mutual
desire. [1] Having already taken a bite from the apple, Eve turns toward Adam with
a knowing gaze as she tenderly touches his chest. Mesmerized, Adam gently
draws Eve toward him with his left arm as he looks into her eyes with intense
longing. Adam also holds fruit, a tender fig that he squeezes between the
forefinger and thumb of his right hand, a gesture as laden with sensual overtones
as is the partially eaten apple. [2] The compelling emotional force of this moment is
enhanced by the surrounding plants and animals, which Goltzius has painted in a
bewitchingly believable fashion.

Goltzius entices his viewer to become fully engaged in this intimate encounter by
placing the life-size figures of Adam and Eve close to the picture plane where one
senses the fullness of their physical presence and the power of their mutual
attraction. [3] Adam and Eve’s bodies are perfectly proportioned, with skin that
yields gently to the touch. As they lie there entirely naked except for the ground ivy
that covers Adam’s genitals, light plays across their bodies, modeling Adam’s

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muscular body as well as Eve’s softer form with its paler, more transparent flesh
tones. Nevertheless, their idealized bodies have a physicality that fully explains
their inability to restrain their primal appetites. That failure will lead to their
expulsion from Eden and humanity’s fall from grace.

So beguiling is this portrayal that one can almost understand how Adam and Eve
remained oblivious to the dire consequences of their actions as they discovered
these new and unexpected emotions. Yet, as is narrated in the book of Genesis
(Genesis 3:1–7), Adam and Eve had been told not to eat the fruit from the tree in
the midst of the garden lest they die. The serpent, however, persuaded Eve that
eating this fruit would allow them to be like God, knowing good from evil. She
partook of the fruit and then passed it on to Adam, who ate as well. Consequently,
their eyes were opened, and, realizing they were naked, they sewed together fig
leaves to cover themselves. God drove the couple from his earthly paradise, the
Garden of Eden, and neither they nor their offspring would ever be allowed to
return.

Goltzius’ seductive rendering of The Fall of Man differs in fundamental ways from
the pictorial tradition of this biblical theme. Prior images, including Goltzius’
drawing of The Fall, c. 1597 [fig. 1], and his large painting of 1608, now in the
Hermitage, had depicted the couple standing or sitting at the moment when Eve
was either receiving the apple from the serpent or passing it on to Adam. [4] Here,
as Adam languidly gazes at Eve, who is eating from the forbidden apple, his pose
reflects that of his counterpart in Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
where Adam awaits the spark of life from God the Father. [5] As exceptional as it
was for Adam and Eve to be depicted as lovers reclining in their paradisiacal
setting, it was even more unprecedented for a painting of them to focus on their
rapt gazes and mutual yearnings rather than on the transfer of the apple.

Little in the demeanor of Adam and Eve indicates the grave consequences of their
actions, although Goltzius alludes to the momentousness of the occasion. The
animals surrounding the couple in the Garden of Eden provide a symbolic
framework for how the viewer ought to respond to the scene. Most important to
the biblical narrative, of course, is the serpent that leads Eve astray. Far from the
evil and menacing creature that one often finds in such depictions, Goltzius’
serpent is sweet-faced and female-headed, a warning about the deceptiveness of
appearances. [6] The goat traditionally signified unrestrained lust and the unchaste;
as such, it was frequently included in images of The Fall (see fig. 1). [7] Karel van
Mander I (Netherlandish, 1548 - 1606), whose writings Goltzius would have

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thoroughly known, gave a particularly pointed symbolic interpretation for this

animal. For him the goat also signified “the whore, who destructs young men, just
[as it] browses and violates the young green shoots,” [8] an interpretation that
Goltzius has followed: the goat nearest Eve chomps on young grasses.

The elephant and hare in the far distance have different relationships to Adam and
Eve. Both animals have turned their backs on the scene and are departing the area
as quickly as possible. The hare probably leaps away in fear of the consequences
of Adam and Eve’s actions, since fear is one of the attributes Van Mander gave to
this animal. [9] On the other hand, the elephant was traditionally associated with
piety, temperance, and chastity, so little wonder that Goltzius depicted it in fast
retreat. [10]

The most fascinating and riveting of all the animals in the scene is the cat in the
immediate foreground, which is so realistically painted that one can almost hear it
breathe. Although the cat was traditionally viewed as a symbol of lust and sensual
pleasure, for Van Mander this animal served as a warning to the viewer about
being an unjust judge. [11] The cat’s penetrating gaze, from which there is no
escape, reminds spectators not to condemn others for the very vices of which they
are themselves guilty.

The Fall of Man is among a number of paintings Goltzius executed between 1613
and 1616 that focus on lovers in a landscape, including Venus and Adonis, 1614 [fig.
2], which depicts the goddess gently embracing Adonis as she, in vain, urges him
to stay with her and avoid the hunt. Much as with Adam and Eve, the two figures
gaze into each other’s eyes, with their young, idealized bodies arrayed in the
immediate foreground for the visual enjoyment of the spectator. The style and
character of Venus and Adonis, and all of Goltzius’ subsequent paintings, owe
much to the influence of Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577 - 1640), who visited
Goltzius in Haarlem in June 1612 in search of an engraver to make reproductive
prints after his paintings. Goltzius, who had turned his attention to painting around
1600 after his successful career as an engraver, had previously sought to master
the rendering of flesh, which Van Mander considered to be one of the most difficult
things to paint and thus a crucial test of a painter’s skill. [12] It was only after
Rubens’ visit, however, that Goltzius learned how to create sensual painted images
by blending his brushstrokes to create the luminosity of flesh and by focusing on
the emotions of love and longing. [13] It is not known which of this Flemish master’s
paintings Goltzius actually saw at that time, but one of them could have been a
Venus and Adonis that was in the Delft collection of Boudewijn de Man (c.

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1570/1575–after 1644), who likely was the first owner of Goltzius’ The Fall of Man.
[14]

Although Rubens had a great impact on Goltzius’ painting style in the mid-1610s, no
one would ever confuse the works of the two artists. Goltzius never assimilated the
lessons of his experiences in Italy in 1590–1591 to the same extent that Rubens had
during his prolonged stay there in the first decade of the seventeenth century. The
idealization of classically inspired figures in Rubens’ paintings was of a different
order than the idealization of comparable figures in Goltzius’ paintings. For
example, even though Adam’s pose relates in many ways to that of the antique
sculpture of the river god Tiber that Goltzius drew in Rome in 1591 [fig. 3], Goltzius
has given Adam’s body a sinuous, rhythmic flow reminiscent of the artist’s late
sixteenth-century mannerist style.

Goltzius must have based this composition on a number of drawings that he made
from life. The goat nearest Eve, for example, is practically a mirror image of a
metalpoint drawing he made in 1591–1594. [15] Documents indicate that Goltzius
also made a drawing of a cat, which was probably similar in character to the goat
drawing. [16] Drawings likely served as models for both Adam and Eve since the
poses of both figures are found in other paintings. For example, Goltzius used
Eve’s pose for one of the daughters in Lot and His Daughters, 1616, in the
Rijksmuseum. [17] Interestingly, by 1616 Goltzius had already used Adam’s pose
twice when depicting a female figure. In his Vertumnus and Pomona of 1613, the
goddess of fruit reclines in a landscape just as Adam does, but facing the opposite
direction [fig. 4]. In 1615 she appears in mirror image, in the pose that Goltzius
would use for Adam one year later. [18] It is testimony to the artist’s genius that
each of the permutations of this figure seems so compellingly natural and
integrated into its narrative.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

April 24, 2014

COMPARATIVE FIGURES

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fig. 2 Hendrick Goltzius, Venus and Adonis, 1614, oil on

canvas, Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen, Alte
Pinakothek, Munich. Photo: bpk, Berlin / Alte Pinakothek,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich / Art
Resource, NY

fig. 1 Hendrick Goltzius, The Fall, c. 1597, pen and brown

ink, brush in various colors, British Museum, London.
Photo © Trustees of the British Museum

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fig. 4 Hendrick Goltzius, Vertumnus and Pomona, 1613, oil

fig. 3 Hendrick Goltzius, The River God Tiber, 1591, black on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Photo ©
chalk on blue paper, heightened with white, Teylers Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Museum, Haarlem

NOTES

[1] I would like to thank Lynn Russell and Lieneke Nijkamp for their assistance
with this text.

[2] Portrayals of fig trees or figs in emblem books signified abundance as well
as the Resurrection of Christ. In this painting, because Adam holds the fig
but has not yet eaten from the apple, he is still—at least for now—worthy of
the abundance of the Garden of Eden. The fig in his hand could also
represent God’s promise of mankind’s redemption through the future
sacrifice and resurrection of his son. See Arthur Henkel and A. Schöne, eds.,
Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts
(Stuttgart, 1967), lx–lxi and 241–242, citing Georgia Montanea, Monumenta
Emblematum Christianorum Virtutum (1571; reprint, Frankfurt, 1619), 24.

[3] For an excellent discussion of Goltzius’ ability to seduce the eye and afford
sensual pleasure through the depiction of beauty, see Eric Jan Sluijter,
“Venus, Visus and Pictura,” in Seductress of Sight: Studies in Dutch Art of
the Golden Age, trans. Jennifer Kilian and Katy Kist (Zwolle, 2000), 86–159.

[4] Much like his painting of 1616, Goltzius’ drawing of 1597 includes a cat and a
goat in the foreground. The most important of these prior images of The Fall
of Man was the engraving Adam and Eve, 1504, by Albrecht Dürer (German,
1471 - 1528), which served as the basis for the monumental painting of this
subject by Goltzius’ colleague in Haarlem, Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem
(Dutch, 1562 - 1638). Cornelis painted his work for the Prinsenhof in Haarlem
in 1592. See Ger Luijten, Dawn of the Golden Age: Northern Netherlandish

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Art, 1580–1620 (Amsterdam, 1993), 337–338, no. 7. For Goltzius’ painting of

1608 in the Hermitage, see Huigen Leeflang et al., Hendrick Goltzius
(1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and Paintings (Amsterdam, 2003), 268–269,
fig. 102.

[5] I would like to thank Rachel Pollack for this observation.

[6] See Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, vol. 2, pt. 1 of 2 (Paris, 1956),
84. For an overview of Renaissance and baroque prints depicting Adam and
Eve, see H. Diane Russell, Eva/Ave: Woman in Renaissance and Baroque
Prints (Washington, DC, 1990), 113–130.

[7] This goat is in exactly the same pose as that of Goltizus’ 1616 painting,
indicating that he used the same preliminary drawing for both works.

[8] Karel van Mander, “Wtbeeldinge der figueren . . .,” in Karel van Mander, Het
schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 129r. “De Geyte beteyckent de Hoere /
die de jonghe knechten verderft / ghelijck de Geyt de jonghe groen
spruyten afknaeght en scheyndet.” The translation is taken from Huigen
Leeflang et al., Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and
Paintings (Amsterdam, 2003), 332 n. 156.

[9] Karel van Mander, “Wtbeeldinge der figueren . . .,” in Karel van Mander, Het
schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 130r. “Met hem wort de vreese
beteyckent: want hy een seer vreesachtigh Dier is” (with him fear is meant,
since he is a fearful animal). Huigen Leeflang et al., Hendrick Goltzius
(1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and Paintings (Amsterdam, 2003), 302, no. 111,
on the other hand, interprets the rabbit as symbolizing carnality.

[10] The positive assessment of the elephant’s virtues goes back to Pliny, who
wrote that the animals “possess virtues rare even in man, honesty, wisdom,
justice.” He also noted that they hate serpents. See H. Rackham, Pliny
Natural History (Cambridge, MA, 1940), 3, book 8. For Christian symbolism
related to the elephant, see Leonard J. Slatkes, “Rembrandt’s Elephant,”
Simiolus 11, no.1 (1980): 7–13. Van Mander goes so far as to ascribe the
attribute “Godliness” to it. Karel van Mander, “Wtbeeldingeder figueren . . .,”
in Karel van Mander, Het schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 128r. “Den
Oliphant beteyckent den Coningh / en d’Egyptsche hebben hem daer mede
beteyckent. Den Oliphant / in een water siende nae een nieuw Maen /
beteyckent de Godsdiensticheyt / oft Godsvruchticheyt: want sy alle
Maende hun suyveren met de nieuw Maen / die sy schijnen te eeren.”

[11] Karel van Mander, “Wtbeeldinge der figueren . . .,” in Karel van Mander, Het
schilder-boeck (Haarlem, 1604), fol. 130r. “De Katte beteyckent een
onrechtveerdigh Richter: want sy is dickwils in huys schadigher als de
Muysen / die sy als meesten dief / om hun dieverije straffende is.”

[12] For the painting of flesh, see Ann-Sophie Lehmann, “Fleshing Out the Body:
The ‘Colours of the Naked’ in Workshop, Practice, and Theory, 1400–1600,”

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in Body and Embodiment in Netherlandish Art / Lichaam en lichamelijkheid

in de Nederlandse kunst, ed. A. S. Lehmann and H. Roodenburg,
Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 58 (Zwolle, 2008): 87–107; Paul
Taylor, “The Glow in Late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Dutch
Paintings,” in Looking through Paintings: The Study of Painting Techniques
and Materials in Support of Art Historical Research, ed. Erma Hermens,
Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 11 (Delft, 1998): 159–178; and Eric Jan
Sluijter, “Goltzius’ Painting and Flesh or Why Goltzius Began to Paint in
1600,” in The Learned Eye: Regarding Art, Theory, and the Artist’s
Reputation—Essays for Ernst van de Wetering, ed. M. van den Doel
(Amsterdam, 2005): 158–177. I would like to thank Perry Chapman for
providing me with these references.

[13] For further discussion of Rubens’ influence on the pictorial character of The
Fall of Man, see Huigen Leeflang et al., Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617):
Drawings, Prints, and Paintings (Amsterdam, 2003), 302, no. 111.

[14] For Boudewijn de Man, see Jaap van der Veen, “Delftse verzamelingen in
de zeventiende en eerste helft van de achttiende eeuw,” in Burgers
verzamelen 1600–1750: Schatten in Delft (Delft, 2002), 72–74. The sale of
Boudewijn de Man’s collection occurred in Delft on March 15, 1644. De Man
owned almost seventy paintings, including three by Rubens, among them a
Venus and Adonis. This work sold for f. 500, and was the most expensive
painting in his large collection. Venus and Adonis, c. 1612, was probably the
painting of that subject in the Mauritshuis (inv. no. 254), which is now
considered a studio replica of Rubens’ painting in Düsseldorf. De Man
owned three Goltzius paintings, among them Adam and Eve, which sold for
f. 110. One of De Man’s other paintings by Goltzius was an “Abel in het
verkort” (Abel in foreshortening), which has been identified as The Dead
Adonis, 1609, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-A-1284). Whether
or not De Man commissioned these paintings (he did commission other
works), it seems probable that Goltzius would have known his collection. I
would like to thank Jaap van de Veen for providing me with a list of the
contents of De Man’s sale.

[15] This drawing is illustrated in Huigen Leeflang et al., Hendrick Goltzius

(1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and Paintings (Amsterdam, 2003), 176, no. 60.

[16] Huigen Leeflang et al., Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and
Paintings (Amsterdam, 2003), 176.

[17] Huigen Leeflang et al., Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and
Paintings (Amsterdam, 2003), 304–305, no. 112.

[18] This painting is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. See Huigen Leeflang
et al., Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and Paintings
(Amsterdam, 2003), 300–301, no. 110.

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TECHNICAL SUMMARY

The painting was executed on a thin, fine-weight, plain-weave fabric. It has been
lined to a coarser fabric and subsequently strip-lined. The tacking margins have
been removed. There is slight cusping on the top and the left sides, but none on
the right or the bottom. This information, coupled with the proximity of the figures’
limbs to the edges of the painting, could indicate that the edges may have been
trimmed slightly in the past. The ground is a thin, light brown layer. The paint is thin
and fluid in most of the composition, but thicker around the areas of flesh that
require greater definition, such as the fingers, toes, and facial features. The paint is
thickest in the cat, where Goltzius used rich brushwork to create the texture of the
fur.

The X-radiographs show numerous losses to the support along the edges. They
are most abundant along the top edge. The paint is tented, but secure and in good
condition. There are a few rather small losses scattered throughout the
composition in addition to the losses along the edges. There is also a vertical
scratch in Eve’s neck. The painting was strip-lined and mounted onto a new
stretcher in 1998. Discolored varnish and inpainting were also removed at that
time.

PROVENANCE

Possibly Boudewijn de Man, Delft; (his sale, Delft, 15 March 1644, no. 2, as Een
Adam ende Eva).[1] Possibly private collection, Amsterdam, 1671.[2] Probably
(anonymous sale, Hubert and Dupuy at Salle des Grands-Augustins, Paris, 3 June
1774 and following days, no. 34, as Adam & Eve).[3] (Camillo Davico, Turin), before
1936; purchased 1936 by Prof. Mario Micheletti, Turin; acquired 1972 by private
collection, Switzerland;[4] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, New York, 15 May 1996,
no. 51); purchased by NGA.

[1] Owners through 1774, and the accompanying footnotes documenting the
sources, are taken from the 1996 Christie's sale catalogue. Boudewijn de Man's
ownership of "Een Adam ende Eva van Goltius [florins] 110" is documented in

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Gemeente Archief Delft, Notary archive no. 1861, deed no. 2035.

[2] Hendrik Houmes' annotation "een Adam en Eva op de cingel tot Amsterdam" is
in a copy of van Mander's Het Schilder-Boeck, fol. 286 recto, preserved in the
Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam.

[3] Lot 34 in this sale is described as "Adam & Eve de Goltius, Pouc. de haut 40". It
therefore measured approximately 100 centimeters in height (the width was not
recorded), and it sold for 49.7 francs.

[4] The anonymous Swiss owner provided information about the ownership by
Davico and Micheletti to Lawrence W. Nichols in a letter of 6 March 1984. See
Lawrence Wells Nichols, "The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617)," Ph.D.
diss., Columbia University, 1990: 185.

EXHIBITION HISTORY

2000 Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2003 Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617): Drawings, Prints and Paintings, Rijksmuseum,

Amsterdam; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Toledo (Ohio) Museum
of Art, 2003-2004, no. 111, repro.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1869 Possibly Biscarra, Carlo F. Accademia Albertina. Turin, 1869: no. 95,
possibly as "copia da Giacomo Jordaens--Adamo ed Eva originale degli
Uffizi".
1990 Nichols, Lawrence W. "The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617)."
Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York,1990: 128, 142-146,
185, no. A-2.
1996 Yapou, Yonna. "Dutch Acquisitions in Washington." Apollo 144, no. 418
(December 1996): 20, repro.
2000 Filedt Kok, Jan Piet. Netherlandish art in the Rijksmuseum, 1600-1700.

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Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Netherlandish art in the Rijksmuseum 2. Zwolle, 2000: 72-73, fig. 12b.

2000 National Gallery of Art. Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century.
Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000: 22-23, color repro.
2003 Leeflang, Huigen, and Ger Luijten. Hendrick Goltzius, 1558-1617:
drawings, prints and paintings. Exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam;
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.
Zwolle, 2003: 302-303, cat. no. 111.
2004 Filedt Kok, Jan Piet. "De wisselvallige reputatie van Hendrick Goltzius."
Rijksmuseum Bulletin 52, no. 1 (2004): 52-53, fig. 29.
2004 Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the
Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 216-217, no. 173, color
repro
2011 Liedtke, Walter. "Frans Hals: Style and Substance." Metropolitan
Museum of Art Bulletin 64, no. 1 (Summer 2011): 22, color fig. 21.
2013 Nichols, Lawrence W. The Paintings of Hendrick Goltzius, 1558-1617: A
Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné. Doornspijk, 2013: 86-88, no. A-2,
color pls. 53, 53a, 53b.
2014 Wheelock, Arthur K, Jr. "The Evolution of the Dutch Painting Collection."
National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 50 (Spring 2014): 2-19, repro.

To cite: Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Hendrick Goltzius/The Fall of Man/1616,” Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, NGA
Online Editions, https://purl.org/nga/collection/artobject/95659 (accessed February 27, 2023).

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