In his treatment of Saint Luke's parable, Rembrandt turned to his print collection for a visual prototype. He closely patterned the composition after a sixteenth-century woodcut of the same subject designed by the Dutch artist Maerten van Heemskerck. Specific features of the setting may be traced to Heemskerck's print�such as the arched opening onto a distant view of the killing of the fatted calf�but the poignant embrace is all Rembrandt's own.