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The Return of the Lost Son

Good Boy versus Bad Boy

A few months ago, I visited the Galleria Borghese in Rome with a dear friend. She is Protestant, religious, and far more fluent in the Bible than I am. As we walked through the museum, we came across the painting below, and she recognised it before I had even finished looking at it. ‘That’s the Lost Son, returning home,’ she said, ‘in the arms of his father.’ Then, after a pause: ‘It’s a story about the mercy of God. The Lost Son comes home and is received in his father’s arms — which is really a comparison to God’s mercy; with no questions asked.’

The Return of the Lost Son (c.1627), Guercino (Italian, 1591 – 1666), Oil on canvas, 125x163cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome.

I barely knew the story. So I went and studied it.

What struck me was how well the story survives being stripped of its religion entirely. At its bone structure, it’s simply this: a father has two sons. One leaves, spends everything — mostly on gambling, drinking and women — and comes home in disgrace. The other stays, works hard, does everything right, and grows quietly bitter about it. But both are equally his sons, and his love doesn’t distinguish between them. There is no good boy. There is no bad boy.

1. The beginning; getting the money

But let’s now start at the very beginning, with a young man who has just been handed his inheritance, and who has a very clear idea of how he intends to spend it.

The Lost Son receives his share (1532), One of eight scenes from the story of the Lost Son, German, Stained glass, Diameter 27cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The Bible describes the moment quite simply, and so does this small stained glass panel from 1532.

A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, "I want my share of your estate now." And his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. 

Luke 15:12, adapted from the New Living Translation

The story comes from the Gospel according to Luke. In it, Jesus explains to his followers some essentials about God and God’s mercy, not by giving them a theological lecture, but by telling short and simple stories. These stories are called parables.

The word comes from the Greek παραβολή (parabolē), meaning ‘comparison’. A parable puts a familiar situation from everyday life next to a deeper truth, allowing the listener to compare the two and discover the meaning. In the Dutch Protestant church, these stories are called gelijkenissen, which can be translated quite literally as ‘comparisons’.

Before we go to the next picture, one small note about the title. The story is usually called The Return of the Prodigal Son. But I have always found the word ‘prodigal’ rather difficult. As a non-native English speaker, I had to look it up. It means someone who spends money freely and recklessly. It is a rather old-fashioned word. So throughout this story I will call him what my friend called him when she recognised Guercino’s painting in the Galleria Borghese: The Lost Son. And this story will be The Return of the Lost Son.

2. Spending the money

Rembrandt and Saskia in the parable of the Lost Son (c.1635), Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 – 1669), Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.

When the younger son got his share of the inheritance, he spent it all. The Bible – the Gospel according to Luke – describes what happened pretty clearly:

A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 

Luke 15:13

Rembrandt’s painting of the Lost Son having fun is quite funny in itself. Rembrandt used himself and his wife Saskia as models: Rembrandt plays the Lost Son, drinking and enjoying himself, while Saskia sits on his lap as an entertaining woman in a tavern.

But there is a warning hidden in the painting, and you have to look carefully to see it. In the top left corner, hanging on the back wall, is a small board. It appears to be a tavern tally board, used to keep track of drinks and debts. The bill will soon arrive!

Brothel scene with the Lost Son (1545), by the Master of the Lost Son, Oil on panel, 61x86cm, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

This painting from the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht makes the ‘wild living’ even clearer. Read it from left to right.

First, wine is being poured. Then we see the Lost Son embraced by a prostitute. Next to them, the old woman who runs the brothel keeps track of the drinks and spending, writing the amounts with a piece of chalk on the tally board. On the table are dice, telling us that gambling is part of the entertainment too.

And then comes the disaster, happening in the background on the right. The money is gone, the bill has arrived, and the Lost Son is chased out of the brothel. Even his clothes are gone. From an upper window, a pisspot is being emptied over him. And further to the right, almost reduced to a beggar, the Lost Son walks away. In the far distance, we can already see where he is heading: towards the swine.

The Lost Son kicked out of the brothel (c.1585), Engraving by Crispijn de Passe the elder (Dutch, c.1565 – 1637) after a design by Marten de Vos (Flemish, 1532 – 1603), 23x18cm, Art Institute Chicago.

Here are some details in the print by Crispijn de Passe. Look at the pisspot being emptied over his head. And look at the signboard, featuring a swan. A swan was a very common sign for an inn or tavern in the Netherlands, but it has another meaning too. In the old Dutch language, swaentje, or ‘little swan’, could also refer to a prostitute. So the swan on the signboard is another clue that this is not simply an inn, but a house of prostitution.

And there is the Latin verse underneath:

Omnibus absumptis ferventi expellitur ira
When everything has been spent, he is kicked out in anger.

The money is gone, the party is over, and the Lost Son is out on the street, humiliated and stripped of almost everything he had.

3. Broke, Living with Pigs, Plan B

The Lost Son eats with the swine (c.1596), Engraving by Philip Galle (Flemish, 1537 – 1612) after a design by Maerten van Heemskerck (Dutch, 1498 – 1574), 21x25cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The next image, by the Flemish engraver Philip Galle, reads like a comic book, from right to left. And Luke describes the scene similarly:

About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. 

Luke 15:14–16

That is what we see on the right and in the middle. The Lost Son is broke, starving and reduced to feeding pigs.

But now an interesting part begins. On the left, the Lost Son is looking upwards, towards a heavenly figure. Is he praying? Is he repenting? Or is he simply crying out to God in desperation?

We need to think one step ahead now. The Lost Son is about to go home. And when he gets there, his father will receive him with mercy, the father as a symbol of God. And here we encounter a difference in the way Catholics and Protestants understand this part of the story. In Catholic theology, God’s mercy is closely connected with the sacrament of confession and penance. In Protestant tradition, the emphasis is placed directly on God’s grace and forgiveness, received through faith rather than through sacramental confession. Remember, during the Reformation Luther and Calvin rejected confession as a sacrament.

So I dare to make a small leap. Could this engraving have been made for a Catholic audience? The Lost Son is not simply suffering. In the scene on the left he is turning towards God, and is it his repentance that’s the first step on the road home?

The Lost Son amid the swine (c.1496), Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471 – 1528), Engraving, 25x19cm, Royal Collection Trust, London.

Dürer’s print is probably the most famous depiction of the Lost Son with the swine. It is the moment when he realises that things cannot go on like this, that he needs to follow Plan B and return home.

When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, "At home even the servants have food enough, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a servant."

Luke 15:17–19

In my personal view, the Lost Son is taking the opportunistic route. Going home is now simply the least bad option. Leaping forward, when he arrives home and is received with happiness, it is the mercy of the father that deserves the credit, not necessarily the Lost Son’s feeling of guilt.

And then there is Dürer himself! He was in his mid twenties when he made this engraving. Only a few years earlier, during his travels through Germany, his father had summoned him home, and Dürer was married to Agnes Frey, who brought a substantial dowry. Within months, however, Dürer left his new wife and travelled to Italy, spending much of his time (and Agnes’ money) in Venice. So here is an intriguing coincidence. Dürer himself had left home, travelled south and enjoyed the pleasures of Italy before returning to Nuremberg. Did he, like his Lost Son, eventually come to his senses and decide to go home?

4. Home, Happy Father

The Return of the Lost Son (c.1654), Guercino (Italian, 1591 – 1666), Oil on canvas, 156x146cm, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, CA.

And then the Lost Son finally comes home.

So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son."

Luke 15:20–21

Looking at Guercino’s painting from the Timken Museum, the Lost Son arrives playing his little crying game. But do we really need that? The core of the parable is not the Lost Son’s tears, or even his repentance. It is the father’s reaction. He sees his son coming and runs to meet him. He embraces him. No blaming. No questions. No punishment. Just happiness.

The Return of the Lost Son (1773), Pompeo Batoni (Italian, 1708 – 1787), Oil on canvas, 138x100cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

And that, after all, is the point of the parable. The father in the story is the comparison with God the Father. The Lost Son may cry, repent, apologise or say nothing at all. God does not need the performance. No tears needed. Just come home. Jesus told this parable to his followers as an understandable way of showing God’s grace and mercy. And Luke recorded it in his Gospel.

The Return of the Lost Son (c.1667), Bartolomé Estebán Murillo (Spanish, 1618 – 1682), Oil on canvas, 236x261cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Murillo makes it like a film scene in this monumental painting, following literally the words of Luke, from right to left:

His father said to the servants, "Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found." So the party began.

Luke 15:22–24

5. Unhappy Brother

Now about his brother, the elder son, who watches all this with growing resentment. Why is there so much joy over his wasteful brother, when he himself has always listened, worked hard and done everything properly?

Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. "Your brother is back", he was told, "and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return."

Luke 15:25–27

Mercy towards sinners, and forgiveness towards sons who have squandered everything, would probably not have been an easy message for many people at that time. The accepted idea was surely that bad behaviour should be punished and good behaviour rewarded. We see exactly this attitude in the elder son. He is angry because there is no reward for him, despite everything he has done right, and no punishment for his brother, despite everything he has done wrong.

The return of the Lost Son (c.1640), Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 – 1669), Drawing, 19x23cm, Teylers Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands.

The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, "All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!" 

Luke 15:28–30

Now it’s the older brother who doesn’t want to come home. In a way, he is now the Lost Son. And suddenly the elder son is no longer quite so different from his younger brother.

6. Happy End!

At the beginning of the story, the father gives the younger son the freedom to leave and spend his inheritance. He also gives the elder son the freedom to stay, work hard and do everything right. When the younger son returns, the story focuses entirely on the interaction between the father and this Lost Son. There is, in Luke’s telling, no interaction between the two brothers at all.

But I am missing the Happy End. Does the elder brother eventually join the welcome party? Does he sit down at the festive table and eat the fattened calf? Do the two brothers finally put their differences aside and make peace? Luke leaves us hanging. His final verse has the father speaking to the elder son, who is still standing outside:

"We have to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!"

Luke 15:32

And then? Well, I am going to add one more verse myself.

And the older brother went into the house, embraced his brother and said: "Welcome home. I am happy you are back." And the younger brother said: "I am happy to be back, and sorry for the troubles." And the father and his two sons sat together, ate the festive meal and raised their glasses together. Cheers!

A Happy End is not so difficult, once one dares to take that step!

Apollo and Daphne

Birth of the Laurel Tree

In the Galleria Borghese in Rome stands a statue by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598 – 1680) that is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of marble sculpture in the Western world. Executed from 1622 to 1625, Bernini captured the moment Daphne escapes Apollo and transforms into a laurel tree. Her fingers are already becoming laurel leaves, her skin already becoming bark. Apollo has caught her at the exact instant she escapes him forever. Bernini is transforming cold stone into something that seems to breathe, to move, to cry out.

Crucially, in the story of Apollo and Daphne neither of the two central figures acts entirely by free will. Both Apollo and Daphne are moved by forces beyond themselves — arrows loosed in revenge by the child-god Cupid — and yet the consequences fall almost entirely upon Daphne. This tension gives the myth a startling relevance to our own age, resonating powerfully with the questions raised by the #MeToo movement: Who is responsible when power is abused? What does consent mean when one party is overwhelmed by forces they did not choose?

Daphne and Apollo (c.1636), Cornelis de Vos (Flemish, c.1584 – 1651), Oil on canvas, 207x193cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

In the first book of his Metamorphoses, composed in the first century AD, the Roman poet Ovid tells the tale of Apollo and Daphne. The story unfolds in six movements, each preserved in Ovid’s verse, and each illustrated by painters, sculptors, and illuminators. Let us follow it from beginning to end:

Apollo kills Python
The dispute between Apollo and Cupid
Cupid’s revenge: the two arrows and Apollo goes after Daphne
Daphne begs her father for help
Daphne turns into a Laurel Tree
The Evergreen Tree and the Laurel Wreath

1. Apollo kills Python

The story begins not with love but with slaughter. Apollo killed Python, the great snake that terrorized mankind. As an allegory, Python represents the fogs and clouds of mist that arise from ponds and marshes, and evaporate when the rays of the sun appear — Apollo being the sun-god, and his arrows the rays of sunshine.

Apollo kills Python (1589), From the series ‘Ovid’s Metamorphoses’, Engraving after design by Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558 – 1617), 18x25cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

The archer god, with lethal shafts that he had only used before on fleeing deer, destroyed the creature with a thousand arrows, almost emptying his quiver, the venom running out from Python's black wounds.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (643-648)

Apollo, Python and Cupid (c.1636), Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577 – 1640), Oil on panel sketch, 27x42cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

2. The dispute between Apollo and Cupid

Flushed with triumph, Apollo encounters Cupid — the small, winged god of love. Apollo, in his pride, cannot resist mockery. Why, Apollo demands, does this little boy need weapons suited for war? The bow belongs to mighty gods like himself, to those who hunt and fight and conquer monsters. Let Cupid content himself with his love-torch and leave glory to those who have earned it.

Apollo and Python, and the dispute with Cupid (c.1650), Jan Boeckhorst (Flemish, 1604 – 1668), Sketch or modello for a tapestry, Oil on canvas, 60x51cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium.

Cupid’s reply is dangerously calm. Your arrow may pierce all things, he tells Apollo, but my arrow will pierce you.

Apollo, proud of his recent conquest of the snake, saw Cupid flexing his bow, pulling back the string, and said to him: Boy, what are you doing with strong weapons? Those arrows and bow are fitting for my shoulders — I who can shoot wild beasts and never miss, and wound my enemies, I who with my countless arrows has just killed that Python. You, be satisfied to stir up some love affair with your torch, and do not lay claim to my praises!

Cupid then replied to him: Oh Apollo, your arrow may strike all things, but mine can strike at you.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (665-677)

The Dispute between Apollo and Cupid (c.1812), José de Madrazo y Agudo (Spanish, 1781 – 1859), Pencil on paper, 22x29cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Here is a divine comedy playing out with tragic consequences for a mortal — or rather, for a nymph. Apollo’s arrogance triggers Cupid’s revenge, and that revenge will be visited not merely on Apollo himself, but on an entirely innocent third party: Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus, who has never wronged either of them and is simply going about her life in the forests she loves.

3. Cupid’s revenge: the two arrows and Apollo goes after Daphne

Ovid then describes Cupid’s vengeance with great precision. He tells us that the little god flies to the top of Mount Parnassus and takes two arrows — arrows of entirely opposite powers. The first is golden with a razor-sharp head: it kindles love. The second is blunt-tipped, leaded: it repels love and makes its victim flee from even the name of it. He shoots the golden one at Apollo and the leaden one at Daphne.

Daphne and Apollo, and Cupid (c.1617), Francesco Albani (Italian, 1578 – 1660), Oil on copper, 18x36cm, Louvre, Paris.

Apollo sees Daphne and is immediately consumed by burning love. Daphne is equally consumed by burning aversion, running from the very idea of love. Both are robbed of choice. Both are puppets of a Cupid’s arrows and revenge. Yet it is Daphne who pays the higher price.

Cupid pulled out two arrows, each with a different force. The arrow which arouses love is gold with a sharp, glittering head, while the arrow which inhibits love is blunt and has lead below the shaft. With this second arrow Cupid hit Daphne, the daughter of Peneus, but with the first he struck Apollo’s bones, piercing right through them, into the marrow.

Apollo is immediately in love, but she runs away, swifter than a soft breeze, and does not stop when he calls her. With increasing speed, he chases after her. That’s how the god and virgin race away, he driven on by hope and she by fear. Daphne grows pale as her strength fails, exhausted by the strain of running away so fast.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (680-801)

4. Daphne begs her father for help

With Apollo almost upon her, Daphne turns to the one source of help available. She calls on her father, the river god Peneus, whose waters flow through the valley. It is a cry for transformation, for escape from the body that has become a trap:

Gazing at the waters of Peneus, she cries out: 'Father, help me! If your streams have heavenly power, change me! Destroy my beauty which has brought too much delight!'


Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (803-805)

Daphne and Apollo, and Daphne’s father Peneus (c.1757), Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venetian, 1696 – 1770), Oil on canvas, 69x87cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Daphne does not ask to be saved so that she can go on living as herself. She asks to be unmade. She asks for her beauty — the very quality that drew both Cupid’s arrow and Apollo’s eye — to be destroyed. In a world where she cannot control the effect her appearance has on those around her, the only freedom available is to stop being what she is. Her father Peneus, the great river God, complies. And the transformation begins.

Daphne and Apollo, and Daphne’s father Peneus (c.1545), Italian maiolica plate, Tin glazed eartheware, Diameter 27cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

5. Daphne turns into a Laurel Tree

Then Ovid gets to the core of the story, Daphne’s transformation. It happens mid-stride, at the moment Apollo’s hands almost reach her:

Scarcely has she made this plea, when she feels a heavy numbness move across her limbs, her soft breasts are enclosed by slender bark, her hair is changed to leaves, her arms to branches, her feet, so swift a moment before, stick fast in sluggish roots, a covering of foliage spreads across her face. All that remains of her is her shining beauty.


Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (806-810)

Daphne and Apollo (c.1475), Piero Pollaiuolo (Italian, c.1441 – c.1496), Oil on panel, 30x20cm, National Gallery, London.

The transformation is complete — and yet not complete, for what persists is beauty itself. Daphne has changed form, but not vanished. And Apollo, reaching the tree, still reaches for her:

Apollo loved her in this form, as well. He placed his hand on her trunk, where he felt her heart still beating under the new bark. He hugged the branches as though they were still human limbs and he kissed the wood.


Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (813-818)

Daphne and Apollo (c.1668), Jan Boeckhorst (German, c.1604 – 1668), Sketch or modello for a tapestry, Watercolor, 22x23cm, Getty Center, Los Angeles.

Apollo’s love does not end with the transformation. The god who could not accept refusal from a living woman, now declares his love for a tree:

Apollo spoke: 'Since you cannot be my bride, you will certainly be my tree. My hair will always be decorated with your leaves. You will accompany the Roman emperors, when joyful voices acclaim their triumph. And just as my head with its golden hair is always young, so you also will wear the beauty of evergreen leaves.'


Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (820-831)

At the heart of Apollo’s speech is a promise: as his hair is always young — as the god of light — so the laurel will bear the beauty of evergreen leaves throughout winter. This is the mythological explanation for a natural fact: the laurel (Laurus nobilis) is indeed an evergreen, its aromatic leaves glossy and dark throughout the year. In the ancient world, evergreens were associated with immortality, with the persistence of life beyond ordinary death. The laurel thus became the perfect symbol of Apollo — the god of undying light, the sun that does not permanently fail even in midwinter.

Daphne and Apollo (1622), Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598 – 1680), Marble, height 243cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome.
And here you can watch the great video on Bernini’s Daphne and Apollo by the Khan Academy (Smarthistory), presented by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker.

Apollo turns his loss into an enduring program, although it is quite a self-glorifying solution. Daphne will adorn Apollo’s hair and his lyre. Daphne will stand at the doors of emperors. Daphne will crown the victorious and the powerful. Apollo claims her, even in her transformation — even in what was meant to be her escape.

6. The Evergreen Tree and the Laurel Wreath

The story ends when the laurel tree bends its new branches, in what Ovid calls a nod — a tree’s equivalent of consent, as Apollo certainly will understand it.

The laurel bowed her newly made branches, nodding in agreement, and seemed to shake her leafy crown like a head giving consent.


Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book I (832-833)

But perhaps it was only the wind that moved the leaves?

The final image of Ovid’s story is the laurel bowing its branches — or seeming to. Daphne, who asked to be unmade, who prayed for her own transformation, has become permanent. She is the tree that does not die. She is in Apollo’s hair and she is on the heads of emperors and generals. She is in the hand of every poet and laureate who ever received a wreath.

Julius Caesar (c.1675), from the Series of Roman Emperors, Engraving by André Vaillant (Dutch, 1655 – 1693), after a design by Titian (Venetian, c.1488 – 1576), with a poem by Geeraert Brandt (Dutch, 1626 – 1685), 22x16cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Every time you see a laurel wreath — in a painting, on a coin, at a graduation ceremony, above a doorway — you are seeing Daphne. The girl who ran. The nymph who asked to be dissolved and was instead immortalised. The body that fled possession and was possessed anyway, in a form that cannot speak, cannot run, cannot refuse.

Napoleon on the Throne (1806), Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780 -1867), Oil on canvas, 163x260cm, Musée de l’Armée, Paris.

The myth is two thousand years old. The laurel is on every door. Daphne is everywhere.

The Twin Tipped Fred Perry Shirt (1952). The Fred Perry logo – a laurel wreath.

The laurel wreath, then, is not only a symbol of triumph. It is also a reminder — worn at every moment of victory, present at every crowning — that somewhere behind glory there may be a story of someone who ran, and who ran in vain.