The Unknown Story Of This Famous Rembrandt Painting Is Finally Uncovered After Centuries

The Night Watch, one of the most famous paintings by renowned artist Rembrandt van Rijn, is awe-inspiring because of its beauty and massive size, with a total of 4.6 meters in length and 3.8 meters in height.

The painting shows 31 figures in all, with Captain Frans Banninck Cocq front and center. What makes this painting memorable is the fact that the scene looks chaotic, unlike other paintings from that era where subjects would normally be lined up in full portrait style.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has been the proud home of The Night Watch for over 200 years. It deserves its place in the Gallery of Honour, where it remains the focal piece amid other Dutch paintings.

Possibly, one of the most fascinating things to learn about a centuries-old painting like The Night Watch is how it has changed over the years. That’s why the Rijksmuseum launched Operation Night Watch, a research and conservation project where experts can analyze the painting at a molecular level.

One thing that makes Operation Night Watch fascinating is how it mixes science and art. The data gathered from this project can change how people see artworks over time. It can also impact the methods used in restoring historical pieces like this.

Susan shares that there is so much detail on a painting’s surface, so it can never be seen as a flat area. That’s why they need to be extra careful with the positioning of the scanner. 

The Night Watch is one of the most popular pieces at the Rijksmuseum, bringing in an average of 2.2 million people each year. This is why they decided to perform Operation Night Watch during operating hours so visitors could watch the process. 

Though a macro XRF machine also scans things, the data it delivers goes deeper than a regular X-ray. It doesn’t simply show areas where the X-ray is absorbed. A macro XRF scanner scatters the rays across the painting’s surface and then goes back to a detector. The machine then measures the energy from the returning rays, which then reveals what chemicals and pigments were detected.

Analyzing a centuries-old painting like The Night Watch reveals a complex mix of chemicals that gives people background on the artist’s techniques. For example, traces of lead would normally be associated with lead-tin-yellow or lead-white pigments.

A total of 33 elements within the painting were studied, with the scanner producing black and white maps for each element. The elements in focus will shine bright to show which ones are predominant in each area.

The analysis that Operation Night Watch is delivering proves one thing–that there is so much more to a painting than meets the eye. People will see different parts of the painting as simply white or blue, but the macro XRF shows that where one might think only brown paint was used, Rembrandt mixed a little blue into it.

Rembrandt was indeed an artistic genius, considering the unique way he approached his paintings. Rijksmuseum’s head of science, Katrien Keune, also agrees with this, considering what they’re discovering with Operation Night Watch.

The scans also reveal a lot of other things that lie beneath the painting’s top layer. This could give deeper insights into what was going on in the artist’s mind as he painted each part of the scene. 

Another aspect that Operation Night Watch clarifies is how the painting has changed through the years. It has degraded over time and was subject to several restoration attempts that could have altered some elements. A whitish haze, for example, has appeared around the dog found in the bottom right corner. 

A total of 56 scans are scheduled for The Night Watch – each scan taking 21 hours to complete. This covers the entire canvas. Once the scanning process using the macro XRF is done, a high-resolution camera system set to take over 12,000 images will take its place. Other imaging techniques will also be done.

Though the scans were all done at the Rijksmuseum, the more serious work was being done across the road at a red brick structure called Ateliergebouw. This is where the researchers and conservators are based, analyzing all the data from the scans.

Robert used to be a materials scientist in Arizona, but his interest in both science and art brought him to Amsterdam. He knew that the arts scene needed someone to help people understand each work of art through data. So, that’s what he did with The Night Watch.

Robert estimates he deals with around 600 terabytes of data throughout Operation Night Watch. That’s because the Hasselblad camera pulls the resolution of The Night Watch to 4.75 micrometers, which means each pixel is smaller than a red blood cell!

All these tiny details make Robert appreciate the master at work, knowing that what he’s doing reveals every stroke and thought Rembrandt put into creating this masterpiece.

If an outsider looks at Robert’s screen while he’s working, there will be moments when all you’ll see are smudges of different colors. You’ll see only these smudges when you zoom in on the high-resolution images.

Another big challenge for Robert is putting thousands of scans and photos together to form a single image of The Night Watch. Not all of the images taken have the same lighting, for example. Some might have some distortion, while others could have been taken from a slightly different angle.

Robert has laid out processes that make this already challenging task more doable. He created a technique called “curtain viewer,” where he can split his screen and have the cursor show the same point on multiple images.

Robert uses the same technique on The Night Watch to show possible overlaps among the images he’s putting together. He compares element maps produced by the macro XRF scanner and figures out which pigments were used in specific areas. This paints a clearer picture of the entire piece.

Robert demonstrates the pixel swarm by using the painting The Man in a Red Cap. He starts by creating a scatter plot that compares cobalt and arsenic and pinpoints areas where cobalt, arsenic, or both were present. 

With the image of the painting now shining blue and yellow in different parts, it’s easier to see that the blue pigments are mostly found in the painting’s brown background. However, it’s also seen on the red hat’s edges. This means that the hat was originally smaller, and the edges were only painted later on as an afterthought.

Another interesting tidbit that Robert’s methods reveal is the timeline that the artist followed to complete the masterpiece. Centuries ago, artists mixed their paints, and these paints dried up very quickly. Because of this, painters often work on parts where the same colors would be used in one go.

Robert also has a way of finding irregularities in a painting. Another Rembrandt creation, The Jewish Bride, is a good example. He used a neural network to show how it should look using nothing more than the data from the macro XRF scans. 

Although the neural network assumed that the presence of calcium meant that those spots on the bride’s face were supposed to be black, it reveals a different meaning. Calcium is also used in gypsum, an element used when restoring art pieces.

Applying these methods to The Night Watch would definitely reveal a lot of interesting information, knowing that it has a long history of conservation efforts. It was originally displayed at the big hall in the headquarters of the civic guard, where feasts and target practices were held. It was a commissioned piece and was originally called Militia Company of District II Under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq.

Conservator Esther van Dujin has begun digging into old archives to find documentation that would help her create a timeline showing the conservation history of The Night Watch. Her research connects the data gathered from the scientific imaging that Robert and the other scientists do.

It’s a good thing there were other smaller copies that Rembrandt’s contemporaries created during that time. An 86-centimeter version made by Gerrit Lundens, a Dutch artist, is on display in the Rijksmuseum beside the Rembrandt original.

As Esther studies The Night Watch’s history, she also sees how conservation techniques have evolved. The painting went through some restoration treatments and had its canvas removed and reattached again and again. 

Possibly the biggest problem with applying varnish over and over is the fact that cracks eventually start to appear on the surface, making the painting appear cloudy over time. Paintings also become more sensitive with age, so many restorers hesitate to add more touches. 

The temporary fix that was initially being used stopped working over time, so the museum had to think of a new technique. But World War II suddenly broke out, so The Night Watch was immediately rolled up and evacuated.

When the ’70s rolled around, there were plans to restore the painting again. But it was brutally attacked in 1975, with a visitor slashing the painting vertically with a bread knife 12 times. This left some of the canvas dangling.

To fill in some of the gaps in the painting’s conservation timeline, some old pieces of canvas used to repair The Night Watch in the past were brought in for OCT imaging. There was an old piece, for example, that was used to cover a small hole but was removed in the 1975 restoration process. 

The OCT scans revealed that the small patch of canvas was added to the painting in the 19th century, making it older than they initially thought. It also shows signs of the varnish added after World War II when it was initially brought back to the museum.

Although their intentions were good, it is now more evident that old conservation techniques meant covering flaws without thinking too much about how they could impact the original work of art. That’s why more modern art conservation techniques ensure that anything not original should be removed, and pieces should only be retouched when necessary.

Restoration on The Night Watch was supposed to happen in mid-2020, but the pandemic delayed the timeline. Two and a half years after Operation Night Watch was launched, the painting was finally removed from its wooden frame and transferred to an aluminum one in 2022.