Rembrandt painting was altered to erase turban from man's head, restorers find [View all]

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jun/25/rembrandt-painting-was-altered-to-erase-turban-from-mans-head-restorers-find

Rembrandt painting was altered to erase turban from man’s head, restorers find

Exclusive: Unknown hand covered up artist’s depiction of diverse crowd during influx of refugees to Leiden in 1620s

Dalya Alberge
Thu 25 Jun 2026 13.00 EDT

Layers of overpaint have been removed from a 17th-century painting, confirming that it was painted by Rembrandt and revealing that a turban on one of the figures had been replaced with a traditional Dutch soft cap.

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The artist seems to have been inspired by the multicultural, religiously diverse streets of 17th-century Holland. When he painted it, religious rivalry was rife and large numbers of refugees were coming to Holland, many settling in Rembrandt’s birthplace, Leiden, to the dismay of most of the city’s population.

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The art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon said the painting tallied with Rembrandt’s close connection with the Remonstrants, a group that argued for religious tolerance and acceptance. “In 1627, when Rembrandt started this painting, Leiden was undergoing an extraordinary humanitarian crisis. The thirty years’ war was at its height, and … hundreds of thousands of people were flooding into the Dutch republic as refugees. In 1626, 1,500 weavers alone arrived there, with their wives and children … so there’s a massive crush of people. It’s estimated that Leiden took something like 10,000 refugees in that one year,” Graham-Dixon said.

“Now, when Rembrandt is painting this, he’s painting this crowded scene of Christ welcoming children, welcoming families. This was very controversial at the time. There were people in Leiden who didn’t want to welcome them. But what we can tell from this painting is that Rembrandt is on the side of humanitarian relief … “So, this is more than just a painting, I think it’s a statement of Rembrandt’s moral position.”

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