The Return of the Prodigal Son is one of the great master’s most famous creations. The monumental picture inspired by one of the Gospel parables depicts the meeting between a profligate son who has experienced great misery before finally returning home and his aged father. On seeing him, the old man “ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you…’” The brightly illuminated face of the old man seems itself to radiate the light of wisdom and nobility of the soul. The painting appears to have been created around 1668 and thus dates from the very end of Rembrandt’s life, serving as a splendid finale to his oeuvre.
On the inside wall is Abraham and the Three Angels, a work attributed to Jan Victors (1619/20–1676), one of Rembrandt’s pupils.