# The Prodigal Son Tending the Swine

[View the canonical artwork record](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/testa-pietro-ra6ff84ab67dbbc/the-prodigal-son-tending-the-swine-r2229cf09f65832>)

## Artwork

- Artist: [TESTA, Pietro](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/testa-pietro-ra6ff84ab67dbbc>)
- Date: 1601-1650
- Technique: Etching, 202 x 301 mm

## Commentary

The Prodigal Son Tending the Swine c. 1645 Etching, 202 x 301 mm Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco Pietro Testa&#39;s preferred medium was etching, which was more suitable than painting to express his fantastic mythological and symbolic conceptions. His etchings have an abstruse emblematic quality and poetical charm only matched by his Genoese contemporary Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. The etching shows the Prodigal Son, in rags, seated beneath a tree, praying, tending swine.

## Related artworks

- [Achilles Dragging the Body of Hector](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/testa-pietro-ra6ff84ab67dbbc/achilles-dragging-the-body-of-hector-r09dad10617990d>)
- [Aeneas on the Bank of the River Styx](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/testa-pietro-ra6ff84ab67dbbc/aeneas-on-the-bank-of-the-river-styx-r7f0363454ac6d6>)
- [Massacre of the Innocents](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/testa-pietro-ra6ff84ab67dbbc/massacre-of-the-innocents-rfd6e4c7e24477e>)
- [Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/testa-pietro-ra6ff84ab67dbbc/presentation-of-the-virgin-in-the-temple-rc9835155ab8704>)
- [Venus and Adonis](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/testa-pietro-ra6ff84ab67dbbc/venus-and-adonis-ra068552f7cdb2f>)

## Attribution

[Web Gallery of Art](<https://beta.wga.hu/pages/about>)