The prodigal son., Albrecht Dürer, artist, circa 1496, Germany, engraving, The Prodigal Son, who humbly returned to his father, was a personification of the sinner returned to the community of the Christian faithful. Albrecht Dürer has chosen to portray the moment when the Son, working as a swineherd, realises his sins and resolves to make amends, going down own his knees amid the farmyard filth: 'And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.' (Luke 15:17-19) Dürer's original approach to the subject of this print, instead of showing the Prodigal Son carousing in a brothel or bath-house as he was more usually represented earlier in the fifteenth century, combined with his technical mastery of the medium of engraving, make this one of his best-loved and most successful images.
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