Eve Tempted was Hiram Powers’s first full-length ideal statue. It shows Eve contemplating an apple in her hand while a serpent lingers at her side. American audiences in the nineteenth century felt that statues and paintings of nude figures were scandalous, but Powers maintained that “clothing would be preposterous, for [Eve] was naked only after she had fallen.” Her pensive expression anticipates the consequences of her actions, which the artist described in his later piece, Eve Disconsolate.
“… as for her nudity—she does not appear to know that she is so.” The artist, quoted in April Kingsley, Hiram Powers’ Paradise Lost, Exhibition Catalogue, 1985
- Title
-
Eve Tempted
- Artist
- Date
- modeled 1842
- Location
- Dimensions
- 70 1⁄4 x 22 1⁄8 x 21 1⁄2 in. (178.4 x 56.2 x 54.6 cm)
- Credit Line
-
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Museum purchase in memory of Ralph Cross Johnson
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- plaster
- Classifications
- Keywords
-
- Animal – reptile – snake
- State of being – evil – temptation
- Religion – Old Testament – Eve
- Religion – Old Testament – Genesis
- Object Number
-
1968.155.7
- Palette
- Linked Open Data
- Linked Open Data URI
