- Title
- Adam Naming the Animals
- Date Made
- 1604
- Medium
- Engraving
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 11 1/4 × 8 1/8 in. (28.58 × 20.64 cm)
Image: 10 3/4 × 7 3/4 in. (27.31 × 19.69 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.88.91.327
- Collecting Area
- Prints and Drawings
- Curatorial Notes
The Latin inscription at the bottom of this engraving reads: “as the Creator assembled the world into a perpetual amalgam and created all species of cattle and all species of birds, Prometheus ingeniously shaped man with better soil, endowing him with authority over land, heaven, and water.” This print and its inscription codify the Christian origins of European anthropocentrism, particularly the idea that the natural world, including animals, was created by God to serve the needs of man. The placement of Adam in the composition and his assured stance reinforce his comfort with, yet clear dominion over, the group of assembled animals. He stands overlooking a vista of fauna, gesturing with an open hand to signal that he is naming the pair of rabbits below. The slender, gently swaying body of Adam is identifiable as a type drawn from classical sculpture, most notably the Farnese Hermes. To a contemporaneous viewer, this classically idealized figure expressed the notion that the body of Adam before his initial sin was a form divinely crafted by God.
Claire Spadafora Baes
2023
- Selected Bibliography
- Bartsch, Adam von. The Illustrated Bartsch. New York: Abaris Books, 1978.
- Zumaya, Diva. The World Made Wondrous: the Dutch Collector's Cabinet and the Politics of Possession. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2023.