Rembrandt painting altered to erase turban from man's head

Restorers removed layers of overpaint from a 17th-century canvas, confirming it as a Rembrandt and revealing that a turban on one figure had been replaced with a traditional Dutch soft cap. A later anonymous hand had amended or sanitised Rembrandt’s original, apparently misunderstanding that its biblical theme—"Let the Little Children Come Unto Me"—is about tolerance, with Christ blessing children as well as adults.

In the gospel of Saint Luke, Jesus rebukes his disciples for turning away parents who brought their children to him: "Suffer [allow] little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Rembrandt depicted a crowd of diverse figures, with Jewish and Christian faiths also represented, and appears to have drawn on the multicultural, religiously mixed streets of 17th-century Holland.

Religious rivalry was rife while large numbers of refugees were arriving in Leiden.

Netherlands, Leiden

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