Return of the Prodigal Son

The German-born, American-raised painter and printmaker Henry Mosler worked as an artist and correspondent for Harper’s Weekly during the Civil War. In his home city of Cincinnati, he painted the Plum Street Temple (ca. 1866), representing the synagogue of the leading Reform rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, as well as portraits of members of the local Jewish community. Mosler subsequently settled in Paris, where he showed his works in the Salon, the annual art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, from 1878 to 1897. His 1879 entry, Return of the Prodigal Son, was awarded an honorable mention and acquired for the Musée du Luxembourg, making it the first painting by an American artist that the French government purchased.