Adam and Eve
Lucas Cranach the Elder
(1472-1553)

Old Luke Cranach never revealed why he didn't finish this painting.
Some scholars believe he received threats from the Ku Klux Klan. Others opine that the Adam figure is just the underpainting and when he was finished Adam would be as white as Eve, a view that is widely held because his other renderings of the subject, such as the one in the Norton Simon Collection in Pasadena, CA, show a white Adam. Still, Adam might have been black. We may never know.


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