The Prodigal Son with the Swine

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The Prodigal Son with the Swine

Artist Hans Sebald Beham (German, 1500-1550)

Dateabout 1540

DimensionsH: 2 5/16 in. (5.9 cm); W: 3 15/16 in. (10 cm)

Mediumengraving

ClassificationPrints

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

1923.3199

Not on View

Label TextIn 1496, Albrecht Dürer made an unprecedented statement with his print The Prodigal Son Amid the Swine, depicting the prodigal kneeling in a barnyard amongst the pigs. The prodigal was, in Dürer’s print, equated with the animals about him. In this version by Sebald Beham, produced some 44 years later, the prodigal is shown in a bucolic landscape leaning on a staff and staring into the distance as he oversees the swine herd. While reduced in wealth and class status in Beham’s version, the prodigal maintains a certain amount of dignity.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, The Painter Was a Printmaker, June 23 - Sept. 9, 1984.

Toledo Museum of Art, Storytelling in Miniature, October 7, 2011-March 4, 2012.