AFTER CONRAD MEIT, MID 19TH CENTURY

Conrat Meit (1480s?-1550/51) was one of the most important sculptors of the German Renaissance. This model of Eve is after an original in boxwood, circa 1510, also with Adam now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich. Meit worked at the court of Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, at Wittenberg, collaborating with Cranach., between 1506-10. In 1514 Meit was named official court sculptor to Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands. Working in Mechelen (Malines) in Flanders, he created small objects for Margaret's Kunstkammer, working with equal skill in boxwood, alabaster, and bronze. This copy of Eve illustrates Conrat Meit's distinctive manner, in which he combined classical idealism with the Northern precision for detail