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.