The Prodigal Son in the Brothel (Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern)

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The Prodigal Son in the Brothel (Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern): Rembrandt

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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Rembrandt Oil Painting - The Prodigal Son in the Brothel (Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern)

Keywords: Prodigal, Brothel, Rembrandt, Saskia, Scene, Prodigal, Tavern

Work Overview: The Prodigal Son in the Brothel (Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern)
REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
c. 1635
Oil on canvas
161 x 131 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

The Prodigal Son in the Brothel is a painting by the Dutch master Rembrandt. It is housed in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister of Dresden, Germany. It is signed "REMBRANDT F.".

It portrays two people who had been identified as Rembrandt himself and his wife Saskia. In the Protestant contemporary world, the theme of the prodigal son was a frequent subject for works of art due to its moral background. Rembrandt himself painted a Return of the Prodigal Son in 1669.

The left side of the canvas was cut, perhaps by the artist himself, to remove secondary characters and focus the observer's attention on the main theme.
The pigment analysis[1] shows Rembrandt's choice of the usual baroque pigments such as red ochre, lead-tin-yellow, madder lake and smalt and also his elaborate multilayer painting technique.

This unique double portrait of Rembrandt and Saskia (c. 1635-36) seems to offer an ironic and reflective gaze at his life. Here, too, an etching echoes the subject of the painting, but in the 1636 etched double portrait Rembrandt shows himself at work, drawing as he looks up at the viewer. In the Dresden painting Saskia sits on the lap of a foppishly dressed Rembrandt, who gaily holds up a flagon of ale as he twists to offer a silly grin out of the picture. This tavern setting at once indulges a current "Arcadian" fashion for showing fashionable ladies as courtesans (yet another incarnation of the goddess Flora, with whom Rembrandt had already identified Saskia) as well as draws upon the pictorial tradition of the Prodigal Son with the tavern harlots. It is worth noting that the lavish dress of this couple offers an echo of the finery in the Kassel profile of Saskia, but here the suggestion of loose living and of future repentance from the Prodigal Son analogy also sounds a note of self-criticism.

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The Prodigal Son in the Brothel (Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern)

Rembrandt

Work Overview