UFFIZI: THE CRANACH MASTERPIECES ADAM AND EVE, TOGETHER IN A SINGLE FRAME
This reframing operation reconstructs, both visually and aesthetically, the single unit in which the pair of paintings was conceived, as well as the relationship that is established between Adam and Eve, to create a single narrative that also reassembles the halves of the Tree of Knowledge cut in two by the panels.
Together in a single frame (which also reassembles the two parts of the Tree of Knowledge), the legendary pair of panels Adam and Eve by the great German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (Kronach, 1472 – Weimar, 16 October 1553) is now the undisputed centrepiece of the new rooms of the Flemish Masters on the second floor of the Uffizi Galleries. With his collaborators, Cranach painted more than 50 versions of the theme of Adam and Eve, the progenitors whose fall into temptation condemned all humankind. Although the two Uffizi panels had been conceived as separate works, they were designed to be seen close to and in dialogue with one another, as suggested by the Tree of Knowledge, of which each panel depicts a single half. The new frame, modelled after the ebony ones historically used in Central and Northern European collections and fitted with protective glass, reconstructs, both visually and aesthetically, the single unit in which the pair of paintings was conceived, as well as the relationship that is established between Adam and Eve. Their glances and gestures now converge in a single narrative that also reassembles the halves of the Tree of Knowledge cut in two by the panels.
