The Prodigal Son Taking Leave of His Home

The whole scene is 27 centimetres high and 34 wide. A young man leaves his father's house at the start of the parable, and the picture is small enough to hold in two hands.

That size is the interesting part. The full story runs across six canvases painted between 1660 and 1665, and those six are in Dublin, at the National Gallery of Ireland. It is one of the very few narrative series Murillo made for a private house, and the only one that has stayed together. The Prado owns four of the smaller versions of the same episodes, which is why scholars can follow how he worked out a composition before enlarging it. Some of the poses go back to prints by the French engraver Jacques Callot.

In 2021 the Dublin canvases were lent to Madrid and the two groups were shown side by side. A palace inventory taken between 1814 and 1818 lists this little one simply among the paintings kept in storage.