Paradise before the Fall of Man

The two paintings show what happened when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge. From all creatures living peacefully side by side in plenty, to a barren world ravaged by murder and mayhem. These are moral object lessons; not zoology. Obviously the artist did not study living animals, but copied older sources instead. In the depiction of Earth, animals from every corner of the world mingle with imaginary creatures. In front of the two paintings learned spectators could amuse themselves by seeing how many they might name and recognize from books and other popular depictions. On the threshold of the modern era, belief in Christian traditions had become more abstract. Perhaps von Rosenhof's paintings do not so much convey a religious message as they provide a humorous illustration of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes' (1588 1679) thesis that without sovereign government we risk a war of all against all.