Arm of Eve

1507

Arm of Eve, 1507. Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528). Point of brush and gray and black wash, brush and gray and black wash, heightened with white gouache; sheet: 34.4 x 26.7 cm (13 9/16 x 10 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Alan Kennedy 1965.470 Arm of Eve is the only surviving preparatory drawing for Dürer’s life-size panels of Adam and Eve in the Museo del Prado, Madrid (1507). It is also the only surviving drawing by the artist made on Venetian blue paper, a support he began to use for his chiaroscuro studies while visiting Venice in the winter of 1506–7. With extraordinary economy of means, using only black and gray ink and a limited amount of wash and gouache for shading and heightening, Dürer suggested the grace and balance of the complete human form in this composition of a disembodied arm and hand. Such a study of a hand in ideal proportions cannot help but suggest the hand of the artist, a self-referential nod to his own abilities. The blue paper that Dürer used to make this drawing was a specialty of Venetian paper makers in the 16th century, who achieved the color by infusing the paper pulp with dyed fibers.