Adam and Eve and Gideon and the Fleece are two life-sized[1] Old Testament paintings by the Low Countries Dutch Renaissance painter Maarten (or Maerten) van Heemskerck.

[2] The Strasbourg panels were bought from a private Parisian collection in 1948, their previous history is as yet unknown.

[1] The Gideon panel depicts the episode from the Book of Judges 6:36-40 in which Gideon asks God for two successive miracles regarding a fleece, first that it should be wet with dew in the morning while everything around is dry, and then that it should be dry in the morning while everything around is wet with dew.

[1] It is thus both chronologically and theologically the starting point of the story being told in the now dismembered triptych: Original Sin – prefiguration of the Virgin Birth (Gideon's fleece) – Visitation – Nativity.

[1][2] Adam's muscular build and Gideon's dramatic posture are reminiscent of works by Michelangelo and his imitators that Heemskerck had seen in Rome.