£5,000
Five Centuries: Furniture, Paintings & Works of Art | 689
Auction: Five Centuries: Furniture, Paintings & Works of Art
in wool and silk, to the foreground a young man stands before a seated older bearded man, and gestures to a city in the distance, a staff in his hand, within a border with fruit, flowers, birds, and putti
Note: The Parable of the Prodigal Son, one of the most important of the New Testament parables of Jesus, teaches the virtues of repentance and forgiveness and the dangers of vice and extravagance. The Prodigal Son is the third and final parable of a cycle on redemption, Luke 15: 11-32, following the parable of the Lost Sheep and the parable of the Lost Coin. The scene in the tapestry depicts the younger son standing before his father before his departure, while his older sibling works in the field in the middle distance. He gestures to a far-off city on hill, where intends to go, and where he inevitably squanders his inheritance with extravagant and wasteful living.