Return of the Prodigal Son

In Luke's Gospel the father does not let his son finish the apology he has rehearsed. He calls to the servants to bring the best robe and put it on him, a ring for his hand and shoes for his feet. Guercino paints that order being carried out. The young man, bare to the waist, is pulling his arm out of a torn shirt while his old father helps him with the sleeve, and a servant in a plumed cap stands by with fresh linen and a pair of shoes. The figures crowd and overlap, and the light breaks across them in patches, the restless manner of the painter's early years. He made it in 1619 for Cardinal Jacopo Serra, and by 1720 it was recorded in the imperial picture gallery in Vienna.