Its four main elements are the biblical Eve, a male figure personifying Death and generally likened to Adam, a serpent, and a tree trunk.

Baldung treated the Fall in a number of woodcuts and paintings, which he signifies by the apple and the bite of the serpent; his iconography is often as original and arresting as in this work.

In this panel, the bodies are grand in scale and fill essentially the entire space, and pale foreground colors are used against a dark background.

Among Baldung's treatments of the Fall, the new element in Eve, the Serpent and Death is the active role of the snake; Adam's decrepit condition, halfway between nude and skeleton, suggests the work of poison, as if from the serpent, and the snake's grip on Adam recalls the biting of the apple in the Fall.

A marguerite, probably an oxeye daisy,[2] sits at the roots of the main tree trunk, in front of Death's right heel.