The Return of the Prodigal Son

'The Return of the Prodigal Son' of 1857, held at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, is among Solomon's earliest exhibited works, painted when he was only fourteen years old. The William Morris Gallery's context — the former home of William Morris, now a museum of the Arts and Crafts movement and its Pre-Raphaelite origins — places this juvenile work within the aesthetic world Solomon would inhabit throughout his career. The Prodigal Son subject from the Gospel of Luke was a natural subject for a young Jewish artist navigating the relationship between his own religious tradition and the Christian subject matter that dominated Victorian art: the story of a son who departs, suffers, and returns to be received with unconditional love carried a universal human resonance that transcended religious specificity.

The work of a fourteen-year-old prodigy, this canvas shows the influence of Pre-Raphaelite teaching in its careful attention to detail and the emotional intensity of the central embrace. The handling lacks the assurance of Solomon's mature work but displays an impressive command of figure grouping and emotional expression for so young a painter.