Wenzel Peter, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

Photogallery

Wenzel Peter, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
Wenzel Peter, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
Room XVI. 19th cent.

The large canvas represents the climax of Wenzel Peter's career. He was an animalist painter, that is to say specialized in a very unique type of painting, and this led him to reproducing with extraordinary naturalism animals of the most varied species, as it were "photographed" in both standing and fighting positions. The Garden of Eden is the proof of the highest virtuosity, since the artist gathers around the figures of Adam and Eve those of over two hundred animals from all over the world, reproduced not only with pictorial ability, but also with a detailed knowledge and scientific precision. In 1831 Gregory XVI (pontiff from 1831 to 1846) purchased twenty works of the Austrian painter Wenzel Peter to furnish the Room of the Consistory in the Papal State Apartment.