Samuel, a Jew­ish appren­tice to the six­teenth-cen­tu­ry Dutch painter Rem­brandt, is eager to prove him­self by tak­ing on tasks more sig­nif­i­cant than sim­ply clean­ing brush­es. Oth­er appren­tices progress more quick­ly because they can spend full days in the stu­dio; Samuel spends half of each day in yeshi­va learn­ing holy Jew­ish texts. His father insists that he con­tin­ue his yeshi­va stud­ies although Samuel argues that Rem­brandt’s paint­ings of bib­li­cal themes are impor­tant as well.

One day, the mas­ter artist is set to paint the scene of Queen Esther with Haman and Aha­suerus at the roy­al court. The mod­el por­tray­ing the Queen feels she knows what a queen should look like — haughty and proud. She is unable to under­stand that Queen Esther was, in addi­tion to being beau­ti­ful, both mod­est and hum­ble. This mod­el wish­es to preen and flaunt her beau­ty and is unwill­ing to pose in a man­ner befit­ting the hero­ine of the Purim sto­ry. She storms off in a huff, leav­ing Rem­brandt in need of a replace­ment mod­el if he is to com­plete his mas­ter­piece. Samuel sug­gests his sis­ter who not only is beau­ti­ful and mod­est, but also has an under­stand­ing of the qual­i­ties need­ed to por­tray an accu­rate Queen Esther. When his father hears the plan, he objects, but Samuel per­suades him that his sis­ter’s par­tic­i­pa­tion would be appro­pri­ate and valu­able. Rem­brandt is grate­ful and sees Samuel dif­fer­ent­ly from that day on. He now appre­ci­ates his skills and devotes him­self to fur­ther­ing Samuel’s devel­op­ment as an artist. Samuel begins to paint and uses what he has learned in yeshi­va to make the Purim sto­ry come alive on the can­vas. Both Rem­brandt and Samuel’s father agree that Samuel’s con­tri­bu­tions are wor­thy of praise.

This beau­ti­ful and artis­tic ren­der­ing of the Purim sto­ry is accom­pa­nied by soft and rich­ly col­ored illus­tra­tions in the style of Rembrandt’s paint­ings. Along with the text, they strong­ly evoke a sense of time and place. An orig­i­nal and inter­est­ing appen­dix details the Purim sto­ry by plac­ing the expla­na­tions in clas­sic-style frames hang­ing on a muse­um wall. A short but detailed biog­ra­phy of the world-renowned artist, writ­ten by a pro­fes­sor, fol­lows the text. It not only describes Rem­brandt’s life, but also the Jew­ish his­to­ry that is reflect­ed in his art.