This sensually imaginative representation of Eve, the first woman, offers an idealized female figure reclining against a dual backdrop: the untamed landscape on the right suggesting the meanders of the earthly paradise, and that on the left organized and dominated by man. Jean Cousin's inspiration here is clearly Italian: rigorous use of perspective, skilled organization of the pictorial space, bodily contours defined by subtle lighting from the left, the physical sensuality of the young woman and the exquisite treatment of the jewelry and accessories. The architecture and the skull, reminiscent of Mantegna in their symbolic sophistication, are evocations of the ephemerality of life and earthly beauty.