With the exception of _Hercules_, _Adam and Eve_ is the only engraving by Dürer of which trial proofs, properly so-called, exist, whereby we can study Dürer’s method. First the outlines were lightly laid in; then the background was carried forward and substantially completed. In the first trial proof Adam’s right leg alone is finished; but in the second trial proof he is completed to the waist. This method of procedure is significant, in view of the endless controversies, based upon an incomplete study of Dürer’s technique, regarding the use of preliminary etching in many plates of his middle and later period. [Illustration: ALBRECHT DÜRER. ADAM AND EVE Size of the original engraving, 9¾ x 8⅝ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] [Illustration: ALBRECHT DÜRER. APOLLO AND DIANA Size of the original engraving, 4½ × 2¾ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] In _Adam and Eve_ Dürer has summed up the knowledge obtained by actual observation and by a series of drawings and studies extending over a number of years, and combined with it his theoretical working out of the proportions of the human figure, male and female. In no other plate has he lavished such loving care upon the representation of the human form. The flesh is, so to speak, caressed with the burin, as though, once and for all, the artist wished to prove to his contemporaries that the graver sufficed for the rendering of the most beautiful, the most subtle and scientific problems. That Dürer himself was satisfied with the result of his labors at this time is made manifest by the detailed inscription, ALBERTUS DURER NORICUS FACIEBAT, on the tablet, followed by his monogram and the date 1504. This plate proclaimed him indisputably the greatest master of the burin of his time; and along the lines which he laid down for himself it remains unsurpassed until our own day.