Time, helped by the eager brushes of varnishers and retouchers, has altered many a painting so that even its old master wouldn't know it. In 1946, restorers at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum disconcerted art lovers by cleaning up Rembrandt's famous Night Watch,* admired for generations because of its air of midnight mystery. Under decades of dust, soot and varnish was a picture painted in the clear morning light, filled with bright colors and contrasts. Last week The Hague's Mauritshuis displayed another cleaned-up Rembrandt masterpiece: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, the...
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