Adam Ploughing, from The Dance of Death

In a rural landscape, a muscular Adam is shown laboring to plow the earth, his body bent forward as he grips a wooden plow. A grinning skeleton, representing Death, stands beside him, placing one bony hand on the plow to assist with the labor. In the background, Eve sits under a tree, breastfeeding an infant, while an hourglass—a symbol of fleeting time—rests on the ground nearby. The scene is rendered in dense, hatched black-and-white lines characteristic of woodcut printing, emphasizing the textures of the rugged terrain and the figures' muscularity.

This print serves as a commentary on the post-lapsarian condition, illustrating the biblical curse of labor (Genesis 3:19) within the broader memento mori tradition of the Dance of Death, where mortality is an inescapable companion to all human activity. It bridges medieval eschatological imagery with the humanist interest in the human condition during the Northern Renaissance.