This work depicts Adam and Eve as they are expelled from the Garden of Eden. An angel brandishes a sword and pushes them away from the Tree of Knowledge, the object that enticed Eve’s sin. Banished from the Garden, Adam (and all of mankind after him) is condemned to hard labor in order to procure food. For her sin, Eve (and all of womankind after her) is condemned to painful childbirth.
The Small Woodblock Passion was designed and cut in a relatively short time, probably in the two years preceding its publication in 1511. This was the same year the Large Passion and the Life of the Virgin were issued, and like both series, it was published by Dürer himself.