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Overview
Heinrich Aldegrever was one of the so-called 'Little Masters', a group of German artists making small prints in the generation after Albrecht Dürer, who included Hans Baldung Grien, the Beham brothers and Georg Pencz. The close resemblance of his early work to that of Dürer led to Aldegrever being called the 'Albert of Westphalia', although his style went on to depart from his mentor's intricate line work to stress the optical effects of light and shadow. He became a Lutheran convert in 1531, but continued to depict religious themes, such as The story of Adam and Eve. His ornamental engravings were used as models by artists and craftsmen well into the 17th century, while his images of virtues and vices are well represented in Te Papa's collection.
This engraving is the first of a series of six. Te Papa also owns the final print in the series, Adam and Eve at work (1869-0001-5). The scene depicted is the famous one in Genesis 2:21-22, where Eve, at centre, emerges from Adam's side, while God kneels over them at left. The figures are set in a landscape before a tree at centre, with a stag in the background at right. A direct copy of the figures in this engraving, together with another by Aldegrever (God forbidding Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge) and two by Dürer, appears in the Flemish painter Herri de Bles's remarkable landscape roundel Paradise (c. 1541-1550) in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
In his Notices of engravers and their works... (London, 1831), William Young Ottley stated: 'This this set is I think one of Aldegrever's most beautiful works'.
See: http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/428295
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-780/catalogue-entry
Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art December 2016