The Creation of Eve, plate one from Adam and Eve 1540

Heinrich Aldegrever made this engraving of the Creation of Eve in Germany, some time in the first half of the sixteenth century. He presents a biblical subject through the visual language of his own culture and time. Here, we see God, Adam, and Eve, but all are dressed in a style that reflects Northern European fashions of the Renaissance. This engraving was made during the Reformation, when artists began to produce smaller, more portable works, sometimes with overt or covert religious or political meanings. Aldegrever himself was an Anabaptist, and was possibly expelled from the city of Soest because of his beliefs. His patrons would have come from a wide range of social classes and religious affiliations. To understand such a work more fully, the art historian refers to many different kinds of sources: the Bible, visual traditions, the history of the book, the history of religion, and much else. In doing this, the historian is able to understand the artwork as a product of very particular social and institutional conditions.