
Tree Growing from Adam’s Grave
Purchased on the Belle da Costa Greene Fund with the assistance of the Fellows, 1963
Having taken root, the branch from the Tree of Mercy planted by Seth in his father's mouth grows into a healthy tree. It breaks through the slab covering Adam's grave, raising his skull in the process. The horizon glows orange: symbolically a new day has dawned. In the bottom border is depicted the sacrifice of Abraham. The patriarch's willingness to kill his son Isaac (a sacrifice stopped, as we see here, by the hand of God) symbolizes God's willingness to sacrifice his son, Christ, on the Cross. The vignette thus hints at the future of the tree painted above it in the miniature.