Zondeval

Adam sits in shadow looking away as Eve stands with her back to the viewer, reaching for the forbidden fruit offered by a serpent coiled around the tree. The scene is filled with lush foliage and includes a turkey and a cat in the foreground, with a smaller figure visible in the distant landscape. The engraving utilizes the elegant, elongated proportions and complex posing typical of Dutch Mannerism.

The Fall represents the central crisis in Western esoteric thought, marking the descent of the human soul into the material world and the loss of the 'original dignity' described by Neoplatonists and Hermeticists. In the context of Northern natural philosophy, the animals present (like the cat) often symbolize the four temperaments or specific vices that took hold of humanity after the transgression.