Eve, the Serpent and Death

Baldung Grien's Eve, the Serpent and Death from around 1510-1515 is one of his most disturbing works — a naked Eve flanked by the serpent of temptation and a decomposing corpse personifying Death. The conjunction of Eve's beauty with Death's corruption was Baldung's most characteristic subject, combining erotic fascination with the nude female body and the Reformation's intense preoccupation with mortality and spiritual danger. Eve as the agent of humanity's Fall — the feminine beauty that introduced death into the world — provided Baldung with a theologically grounded pretext for exploring his characteristic obsession with the female body as simultaneously alluring and deadly.

The pale, luminous Eve stands between the snake and the decaying figure of Death in a composition that creates maximum visual and moral tension, rendered with Baldung's precise, expressive line.