The Prodigal's Return

Sir Edward John Poynter, PRA RWS

Signed with monogram and dated 1869

Oil on canvas

Courtesy of the Forbes Magazine Collection

Poynter, one of the group of neo-classicizing painters led by Leighton whom the critics often considered anti-Ruskinian, anti-Pre-Raphaelites, had great success with The Prodigal's Return, which he exhhibited at the Royal Academy annual exhibition shortly after having been elected an Associate. As Christopher Forbes points out, "the Illustrated London News devoted a full page to an engraving,"