The father holds his kneeling son and lifts his face to the sky.
Bible in art · Luke
The Father Welcomes the Prodigal Son
Gustave Doré · 1866 (designs for La Sainte Bible, Tours); this printing 1873–1874
National Library of Poland, Warsaw
Doré’s second plate on the prodigal son shows the meeting itself. It was cut into an end-grain block of boxwood, the hard wood that let the engravers draw such fine, close lines.
The old father, in a rich striped mantle, holds his kneeling son and looks up to the sky. The son clings to him, his staff dropped on the road. All around, servants run up waving their arms, dogs leap, a woman with a jar on her shoulder watches, and camels and palm trees stand at the edge of a desert town.
From the text
- “while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion” (Luke 15:20)
- “He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
- “Bring the best robe and put it on him.” (Luke 15:22)
The artist’s own
- An Eastern village of Doré’s imagination, with camels, palms and running dogs
- Servants already rushing up, before the father calls them
- The father’s mantle with tassels and a patterned border
Details
Father and son
The dropped staff
The son’s walking stick lies on the road.
Running servants
Men with crooks run up, arms raised.
A woman with a jar
She stops with a jar on her shoulder to watch.
Gustave Doré, French, 1832–1883. National Library of Poland (Biblioteka Narodowa), Warsaw — «Pismo Święte Starego i Nowego Testamentu», vol. 2, Warsaw: M. Glücksberg, 1874 (acc. 75.267 A) · Wood engraving after Gustave Doré’s design · National Library of Poland (Polona): the record of the volume gives the licence «Domena Publiczna» (Public Domain), «copyrightProtected»: false; the scan was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the library itself («Polona Upload», GLAM-Wiki partnership: “This file was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as part of a GLAM-Wiki partnership between the National Library of Poland and Wikimedia Polska”), linking its Polona record.