Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son

Rembrandt's double portrait with his wife Saskia depicts the couple in a moment of merry exuberance. While the artist turns around to the viewer and raises his glass to him, Saskia sits in a more restrained pose on his left knee, her head turned in an unnatural rotation toward the front of the canvas. The motif of the half-length carousing couple the effect heightened by the chiaroscuro, recalls scenes of the Utrecht Caravaggists that unquestionably influenced Rembrandt's oeuvre.