The Return of the Prodigal Son
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
The Return of the Prodigal Son is one of Rembrandt's last paintings, made in the final years of his life and held at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, which acquired it in 1829[1]. It illustrates the parable in Luke 15: a son who squandered his inheritance returns home in rags and kneels to bury his head in his father's chest, while the father, filled with love, wraps both arms around him[2]. Three witnesses stand to the right, among them the dutiful elder son in a red cloak, who in Luke's account resents the celebration his father orders for the brother who wasted his share of the family's wealth[2]. Rembrandt had returned to this story in drawings and etchings for more than twenty-five years, but the Hermitage canvas reworks the subject entirely: static, vertical, and stripped of the earlier compositions' movement, built instead around the still contact of an embrace that has already happened[1]. Rembrandt paints the reunion with hands, not faces, doing the emotional work. The father's oversized hands, pressed into the coarse fabric of his son's tattered clothing, are rendered with a roughness that contrasts against the smoother, closely stroked passages of exposed skin they frame[3]. It is a painting built, in its final years, from touch rather than expression, made by an artist whose own late technique had become almost sculptural in its handling of paint.
Where it is held
Held at Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
The painting is held at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, which acquired it in 1829[1].
A subject Rembrandt returned to for twenty-five years
Rembrandt had been drawing and etching the parable of the prodigal son since at least 1636, when he made an etching of the subject[1]. He kept returning to it across the following decades, and the Hermitage painting, made only a few months before his death, is the culmination of that long engagement. Comparing the late canvas with his earlier treatments makes the distance travelled unmistakable: the format, the arrangement of the vertical lines, and the solemn stillness of the figures all differ sharply from how Rembrandt handled the same story a quarter of a century before[1]. Where the earlier versions lean on the drama of Renaissance engraved sources, the final painting sheds that inherited pictorial language and treats the scene instead as something closer to a prayer[1].
The four witnesses and an unresolved identification
Beyond the father and son, Rembrandt includes four other figures: two standing or seated just outside the embrace and two more further back in a dim doorway[4]. One of them must be the dutiful elder brother of Luke's parable, but scholars disagree on which. Some identify him as the man standing beside the door jamb; others point to the richly dressed figure in red at the far right[4]. Rembrandt gives none of the four much outward expression, their faces neutral and their hands held close to their bodies, so that pictorially all four serve the same purpose regardless of which one is meant to be the brother: they stand apart, physically and psychologically, from the welcome the returning son receives[4].
Hands as the language of the painting
Rembrandt downplays facial expression throughout the composition. The son's face is barely visible, turned away and buried in his father's chest; the father's eyes are only half open, cast downward[4]. Instead, the picture's communication runs through hands. The father's two hands, resting on his son's back, are painted with visible, roughened texture that stands out from the smoother tunic beneath them, and a raised ridge of paint bridges the gap between his fingers where a strip of the son's bare skin shows through his torn clothing[4]. One scholar has argued that because these hands rest so close to the canvas surface, and are painted with the same kind of tactile, worked paint, Rembrandt is in effect inviting the viewer to consider the picture through touch as well as sight, mirroring within the image the very contact it depicts[4].
Common questions
What biblical story does The Return of the Prodigal Son show?
It illustrates the parable in Luke 15:11 to 32, in which a son who wasted his inheritance returns home and is embraced by his forgiving father, to the resentment of his dutiful elder brother[2].
Where is The Return of the Prodigal Son held?
It is held at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, which acquired the painting in 1829[1].
Who are the other figures in the painting besides the father and son?
Four onlookers appear beyond the central embrace, among them the parable's dutiful elder brother, though scholars disagree on exactly which figure he is[4].
Sources
Editorial draws on the following references, verified against the museum and public-domain image record for this work.
- [1] book Émile Michel, Harmensz Van Rijn Rembrandt Used for: this artwork.
- [2] book Lilian H. Zirpolo, Historical Dictionary of Baroque Art and Architecture Used for: this artwork.
- [3] book Giles Knox, Sense Knowledge and the Challenge of Italian Renaissance Art: El Greco, Velázquez, Rembrandt Used for: this artwork.
- [4] book Fred S. Kleiner;, Gardner's Art Through the Ages Used for: this artwork.
- [5] book Amy Golahny;, Rembrandt - Studies in His Varied Approaches to Italian Art Used for: this artwork.
- [6] book Carol Strickland and John Boswell, The Annotated Mona Lisa Used for: this artwork.
Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-09-03. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.
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