Murillo's Prodigal Son Cycle on View at Prado

The Museo del Prado in Madrid opens its 2020-2021 season with a focused exhibition on narrative art in Spanish Baroque, centered on Bartolomé Esteban Murillo's six-painting cycle of the Prodigal Son, normally held by the National Gallery of Ireland and recently restored. Curated by Javier Portús, head of the conservation department for Spanish painting, the show also brings together two other contemporary cycles from the museum's storage: Antonio del Castillo's series on Joseph and his brothers, and Juan de Valdés Leal's hagiographic cycle on Saint Ambrose, commissioned by Archbishop Ambrogio Spinola y Guzmán. All three series share private patronage, religious and moral content, and near-complete preservation. The exhibition highlights stylistic differences: Murillo excels in expressive gestures and emotional intensity, Castillo offers compelling narrative with beautiful landscapes but less convincing painting, and Valdés Leal impresses with architectural perspective and a portrait-like face of Saint Ambrose resembling the patron. A discovery concerns five small panels at the Prado that replicate Murillo's Dublin canvases; radiography confirms they are not preparatory sketches but reduced copies made later by the artist. The exhibition also notes iconographic similarities between Murillo's cycle and a series of eleven tiny prints by French artist Jacques Callot from 1635. The show runs until January 23, 2022.