Constantin Emile Meunier, "The Prodigal Son". 1892, signed on verso C Meunier as well as Atelier Meunier 59 Rue L'Abbaye, bronze dark patinated in several layers, realistic-impressionistic moving depiction of the emotional meeting of a father with his lost son, the father sitting on a flat pedestal, lovingly embracing the face of his son kneeling in front of him with his hands, on elongated rectangular plinth rounded at the front, good condition for age with slight rubbing, h approx. 45 cm. Artist info: Belgian sculptor and painter (1831 Etterbeek to 1905 Ixelles), studied at the Academy in Brussels, was a pupil of his brother Jean-Baptiste, worked with Charles Auguste Fraikin, founded the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts in Brussels with like-minded people in 1868, first worked primarily as a painter, exhibited at the 1880 Salon in Ghent and in that year turned primarily to the depiction of working people, from 1896 he gained importance in Paris and turned mainly to work as a sculptor, 1887-1896 professorship at the Academie Louvain, belonged to the Freemasons of the Lodge Les Amis Philanthropes in Brussels, exhibited in 1997 at the art exhibition in Dresden with his friend Henry van de Velde, in his (self-designed) residence is today the Museé Meunier, which administers his works. Source: Thieme-Becker/Vollmer, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, Verlag Seemann Henschel GmbH & Co. KG, Wikipedia.