The Prodigal Son squandering his Inheritance

The Prodigal Son Squandering his Inheritance at the Museo del Prado shows the parable's second act — the young man in a tavern setting with companions who share his money without sharing his eventual fate, the dissipation that the parable identifies as the moral nadir before the turn toward redemption. Murillo's treatment of the tavern scene draws on his experience with Sevillian genre painting: the social setting of eating, drinking, and female company that constituted 'riotous living' in the parable's language was documented in his city's street life and in the picaresque literary tradition that Cervantes and Quevedo had made central to Spanish cultural identity. The small format of the Prado series — intimate rather than monumental — places it in the tradition of devotional narrative series intended for private contemplation rather than public display, each episode examined in close proximity as the viewer meditates on the parable's moral and theological content.

The lively composition groups figures around a table in a manner recalling Dutch genre painting. Rich colors and animated gestures convey the atmosphere of excess, with Murillo's warm palette lending even the scene of sin an appealing vitality.