Eve, the Serpent and Death

Concealing the apple behind her, Eve glances coquettishly at Adam, who has transformed into a rotting corpse. Death himself, he plucks another fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. With the Serpent – the Devil – the three are intimately bound together by touch, grasp, bite and embrace, giving physical expression to the sin that condemned humanity to mortality. The scene is double-edged: Baldung assumes the male viewer takes pleasure in Eve’s beauty, exposing his moral corruption.