Verloren zoon als varkenshoeder

A tattered young man leans on a staff in the center of a busy, crumbling farmyard. To his right, a woman kneels to milk a cow while goats and a large turkey occupy the foreground. In the background, ruined thatched buildings and distant figures tending swine illustrate the son's state of poverty and moral decline.

In the Western esoteric tradition, the Parable of the Prodigal Son was often interpreted as a Neoplatonic allegory for the soul's descent into the material world and its eventual return to the divine. The ruined architecture and presence of swine symbolize the degradation of the spirit when it is consumed by base physical appetites.