Johann Elias Haid

The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal Son asks his father for his inheritance.
The Prodigal Son leaves home.
The debauched life of the Prodigal Son.
The Prodigal Son returns home and begs forgiveness from his father.

15.5.x 12.5

Mezzotint engravings by Johannes Haid, published in Augsburg circa 1770.

These four plates take a very familiar parable from the bible and give it an eighteenth-century makeover. The frock coats, ornate furniture and fabulous wigs bring the parable bang up to date for Germany in the 1760s. In these plates in particular, Haid combines a charming naivety of overall design with an exquisite attention to detail and thereby produces exceptionally atmospheric, domestic scenes

Johann Elias Haid (1739 1809) was born into a family of German artists and printmakers. He worked in his father's publishing house in Augsburg and is most famous for his series of large mezzotint portraits of illustrious individuals. He was very skilled in the art of mezzotint and much of his work includes incidental detail that reflects the iconography of earlier seventeenth century still life paintings.

£950 Group of 4