Adam

Tullio Lombardo

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tullio Lombardo came from a prestigious family of sculptors and architects in Venice. His tomb for Doge Andrea Vendramin (d. 1478) now in the basilica of S.S. Giovanni e Paolo, is the most lavish funerary monument of Renaissance Venice. It originally contained this lifesize figure of Adam, signed on the base by the sculptor. The figure of Adam is clearly classicized, as is the architectural framework derived from the Roman triumphal arch in which he was formerly paired with a figure of Eve. Adam is based on a combination of antique figures of Antinous and Bacchus, interpreted with an almost Attic simplicity. Further refinements are his meaningful glance and eloquent hands (one holding the Apple of Temptation) and the tree trunk adorned with a serpent and a grapevine, allusions to the Fall and Redemption of Man. Remarkable for the purity of its marble and the smoothness of its carving, Adam was the first monumental classical nude carved following antiquity; prudery led to its removal from display around 1810–19, when the monument was transferred to SS. Giovanni e Paolo.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art