Luce Center Label
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.
Luce Object Quote“. . . 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
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70 1/4 x 22 1/8 x 21 1/2 in. (178.4 x 56.2 x 54.6 cm)
- Copyright
- 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
