The Return
JAMES TISSOT
French, 1836 – 1902
The Return (from The Prodigal Son in Modern Life), 1881
Etching, state II
Public domain
Purchase, Museum Acquisition Fund and Williamsburg Chapter of Delta Delta Delta Sorority
1986.036
James Tissot was born Jacques Joseph Tissot in 1836 to a well-off French family. His father was a drapery merchant, and his mother was a fashion designer. Raised in Nantes, an important port city, it is thus no surprise that the bulk of his work depicts genre scenes of fashionably dressed women in fine detail as well as numerous maritime images. Sometimes--as in the typical paintings I show you here--he combined the themes. In 1871, Tissot left France and moved to London where his work was exceedingly popular and garnered him numerous commissions. He died a very wealthy--if somewhat lonely man in 1902.
While Tissot was best known for his genre scenes, he, like many of his contemporaries, also painted biblical narratives. One story he returned to again and again was the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This Parable, told by Jesus to his disciples, is the story of the son of a rich man who asks that he be given his share of the inheritance early in life so that he can see the world. The father does as the son asks and the son leaves his family and travels abroad. The son, however, quickly blows through the money and after a period of destitution, he returns home to ask forgiveness and help from his father. Without hesitation, his father welcomes his son home with open arms and even throws a feast in his honor. When the son’s older brother, jealous of the attention he is receiving, questions his father’s judgement in welcoming the Son back to which the father responds “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine…we should make merry and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” The parable tells of the love and forgiveness God has for all his children--but it is also simply a beautiful and a continuously relevant story of a father’s love for his son.
James Tissot, Return of the Prodigal Son, 1863, 115 x w. 206 cm, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.
In 1863 Tissot painted his first version of the Parable of the Prodigal Son placing the departure and return in a medieval setting. In 1880 he returned to the subject with a series of four oil paintings of the parable now set in modern times, splitting the story into four parts: The Departure; In Foreign Climes, The Return, and The Fatted Calf. Due to the popularity of the pieces, Tissot also created an etching of each scene of that series to which he attached the relevant text from the King James Bible under each scene. He even begins the series with an open bible which lays out the four parts of the series.
James Tissot, The Departure (from The Prodigal Son in Modern Life), 1881, 50.2 x 62.4 cm, Muscarelle Museum of Art.
James Tissot, The Return (from The Prodigal Son in Modern Life), 1881, 50.2 x 62.4 cm, Muscarelle Museum of Art.
James Tissot, In Foreign Climes (from The Prodigal Son in Modern Life), 1881, 50.2 x 62.4 cm, Muscarelle Museum of Art.
James Tissot, The Fatted Calf (from The Prodigal Son in Modern Life), 1881, 50.2 x 62.4 cm, Muscarelle Museum of Art.
Text from Luke 15: 16-18, 20 alludes to the departure: “And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee// And he arose, and came to his father… But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."
James Tissot, Frontispiece (from The Prodigal Son in Modern Life), 1881, 51.3 x 69.9 cm, Muscarelle Museum of Art.
James Tissot, The Prodigal Son in Modern Life: The Return, 1880, 86 x 115,7 x 3 cm, Musée d'Arts de Nantes.
'The Return' depicts the moment that the Prodigal Son has returned home to his father and his father embraces him and welcomes him back. The compassion, love, regret, and forgiveness the parable discusses is evident in the positioning of the figures and the strength of their embrace. The prodigal son’s older brother stands off to the right, watching the scene unfold consideringly, not quite yet at the stage of jealousy he will later reach.
Four years after the etched version of this image, Tissot returned yet again to the story of the Prodigal Son. This time the scene was done in watercolor and set in ancient Israel. This choice of subject may be related to Tissot’s revival of his catholic faith in 1885 which led him to travel to the Middle East. He devoted the last 17 years of his life exclusively to painting biblical scenes including 365 illustrations showing the life of Christ. Thanks to his travels abroad and first-hand knowledge of the middle east, his 1886 version of The Return is quite realistic in its depiction of ancient Israel. Notably however, Tissot appears to have used the same pose he used in 1880 for the father and son with only subtle differences.
Given the many times Tissot returned to the Story of the Prodigal Son, it is evident that the story had personal meaning for Tissot; perhaps related to his own family history. Tissot’s own relationship with his father had been strained at times (he was unsupportive of his son’s plans to become an artist), while Tissot’s relationship with his own possible son was rocky as well. From 1876-1882 Tissot lived as a family with his model, Kathleen Newton, and her illegitimate son. The couple never married and after Kathleen’s death her son went to live with her family while Tissot returned to France. While Tissot visited his possible son and maintained a correspondence with him, he never publicly climbed him as his own and the two never recovered the relationship they had before Kathleen’s death.
Caitlin Blomo '21
James Tissot, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 1886, Image: 8 11/16 x 5 1/2 in. (22.1 x 14 cm) Sheet: 8 11/16 x 5 1/2 in. (22.1 x 14 cm), Brooklyn Museum.
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