The index finger of his left hand touching the thumb of his right, the young Jesus sadly debates a mob of arrogant, self-righteous scholars. The mood is ominous. The doctors are challenging him, thrusting their sacrosanct doctrines at the fresh pure voice of the youth. They are so cemented into dogma that Jesus's moral and ethical message is an affront to their hard-held authority. Citing their previous books as "gospel," they have completely ignored his message--that one must live by the spirit, rather than the letter of the law.
This engraving shows Adam and Eve at the moment in which Eve accepts the fruit from the serpent. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil bisects the plate, separating the figures of idealized male and female. At the bottom of the picture a cat and a mouse crouch. They are in harmony with each other, but the tension in the poses suggests their future enmity: once Adam and Eve eat the fruit, the harmony of nature will be lost. Other animals (a hare, a goat, an ox) act both as subjects of the animal kingdom and symbols of the balance of humors.
A doctor sleeps in a sitting position, ensconced in an enclave next to what appears to be a hearth. His head rests against comfortable cushions and he is fully clothed. A demonic figure replete with teeth, claws, and wings occupies the upper right-hand corner of the frame and holds an accordion-style fan behind the doctor’s ear.
In the painting’s foreground, a nude woman faces her body forward towards the viewer but turns her head to look at the doctor. Her right arm extends her hand, which points lazily to the hearth. A garment that covers her genitalia is draped over her outstretched arm. At the base of the image, a winged cherub plays on homemade stilts. He does not appear to interact with the other figures in the print.
