The Fall of Man

Adam stands by while Eve, urged on by the tempter, reaches for the apple in a paradise rendered with botanical exactness, every leaf and iris catalogued one by one (Genesis 3). Hugo gives the serpent an arresting form: an upright, lizard-like creature with a near-human face, the 'serpent-woman' of medieval legend, standing erect against the trunk. The bodies are long, pale, and slightly ungainly, and that vulnerability is the point. This panel is one half of a small diptych, paired with a Lamentation - the Fall that made the Redemption necessary, set side by side. It is the work of the Netherlandish master of the Portinari Altarpiece elsewhere in this collection.