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The Temptation and Expulsion from Paradise [after Michelangelo]
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The Temptation and Expulsion from Paradise [after Michelangelo] 1511
This drawing is a faithful copy of the corresponding fresco scene by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace. On the left of the composition, Eve is seen receiving fruit from the serpent, which is coiled around the tree of knowledge. After eating the fruit, both Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise as God had forbidden them to do this. Lotto was working in the Vatican at the beginning of the 1510s, and it is likely that he made this copy in 1511 when the portion of the Sistine ceiling with this scene was first unveiled.

Glossary Open

Composition

The arrangement of different elements in a work of art.

Fresco

A wall painting applied to fresh, wet plaster so that the coloured pigment is absorbed into the surface of the wall.

Composition, Fresco

Details

  • Acc. No. RSA 809
  • Medium Brush and grey-brown wash, heightened with white (partially oxidised), over black chalk, on paper washed blue on both sides; verso: black chalk only
  • Size 20.40 x 37.90 cm
  • Credit David Laing Bequest to the Royal Scottish Academy on loan 1974

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