HANS BURGKMAIR (1473 Augsburg 1531) Adam and Eve. Circa 1525. Woodcut over eight mounted sheets on laid paper probably without watermark. Monogrammed in the printing block in the centre of the lower margin: HB. Inscribed below in the printing block with three lines of text: Und gott gesegnet Sy und sprach zu In Seient fruchtbar und meret Euch und erfülllet die erde... 95.9 x 66.3 cm. Framed. Superb, deep black and even impression with margin around the framing line. With smaller and larger predominantly backed losses in the margins and within the image. The margins of the individual sheets mounted together and overlapping partly reinforced with mounting tape from the reverse. Some restored wormholes in the margins. The paper is somewhat wavy, partially slightly browned. With traces of use and ageing. The reverse with older mounting remnants. Despite the defects mentioned, still in good overall condition and with a very fine overall impression. - Of great rarity. Provenance: - Antiquarian bookshop Hans Marcus, Düsseldorf. - Privately owned in the Netherlands. The giant woodcut "Adam and Eve" by Hans Burgkmair the Elder, printed from eight sticks. Ä. originally bore the date 1525 in the centre and the location "augspurg", the artist's place of birth and work. These two details are missing from the copies of the printing blocks, which were probably made during Burgkmair's lifetime and have survived to this day and are kept in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin. After the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve become aware of their nakedness and are condemned to labour. In Burgkmair's painting, several scenes from the Adam and Eve cycle are processed simultaneously: Life in paradise, Adam as ruler over the animals, God bringing Eve together with Adam, the fall of man, God's discovery of disobedience and expulsion from paradise. The original version of the depiction shows Eve's shame still uncovered, as a very rare print in the Metropolitan Museum in New York proves. In the copied sticks, however, from which the extremely rare woodcut offered here originates, a concealing branch protrudes into the picture like a foreign object. Both the text passage from Genesis in the lower edge of the picture and the unveiled state of Eve in the first version indicate that Burgkmair's original intention was to emphasise the paradisiacal state. The composition was only changed through the intervention of a higher authority that is no longer known today. These objects marked with * (asterisk) are fully subject to VAT, i.e. VAT is charged on the hammer price plus surcharge. Buyers who present a legally stamped export declaration will be reimbursed the VAT.