Hidden sketches have been revealed by restoration work on Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, which is a national symbol for Holland and the Dutch golden age of art, civic values and trade.
The drawings have been mapped using new imaging techniques and computer technology and show how the Dutch master plotted his work on the canvas almost 380 years ago, frequently changing his mind as the huge composition grew.
Taco Dibbits, the director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, said: “The Night Watch is the most famous painting in the history of the Netherlands. It was painted in 1642 and in 2019 we started ‘Operation Night Watch’, the biggest conservation project in the history of our museum.
“The goal is to get a better insight into his working methods, how he painted and to preserve this iconic painting for future generations.”
The Dutch government has vowed to contribute €150 million, alongside other contributions worth €25 million, to buy another Rembrandt, The Standard Bearer, from the French Rothschild family and bring it home.
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“It] is one of Rembrandt’s absolute masterpieces and inextricably tied to the history of the Netherlands,” the Dutch culture ministry said.
The Standard Bearer, painted in 1636, is seen as a critical precursor to The Night Watch, whose official name is “Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq”. The group portrait immortalised Amsterdam’s militia as a potent symbol of new civic pride in a democratic order rooted in real, even flawed, people coming together to defend their city where art, trade and freedom flourished.
The preparatory sketch, made with beige paint with a high chalk or calcium content, reveals new pentimenti, or modifications made by the artist, as he worked on arranging 34 characters into a martial scene after the work was commissioned in 1639.
“We see what we call the calcium map,” said Pieter Roelofs, the Rijksmuseum’s head of paintings. “It gives us the feeling we can peer over Rembrandt’s shoulder while he was working. We always suspected that Rembrandt must have sketched it on the canvas before starting this complex composition. But that was always an assumption. Now that we can see beneath the surface better than ever before, we now have the proof, this gives us real insight into Rembrandt’s creative process for the first time. It is fascinating to see how he’s searched for the right composition. We’ve discovered the genesis of The Night Watch.”
As well as discovering changes such as removing spears, swords, the feathers from the helmet of a central figure in the painting to focus on the character’s face, and the repositioning of key figures, the research has made other breakthroughs.
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For the first time, researchers have been able to fathom Rembrandt’s celebrated impasto technique, which involves the application of thick paint on the canvas to create a unique three-dimensional structure that reflects the light.
“We have succeeded for the first time in replicating Rembrandt’s impasto paint by systematically testing variations of paint formulas using the ingredients that were available to Rembrandt, such as white lead, linseed oil and egg white,” said Roelofs.
The study has also uncovered deterioration, including the disappearance of the cloud of smoke from behind the head of one militia man.
The next stage of the restoration will be the restretching and mounting of the 3.63-metre by 4.37-metre painting on a new wooden frame over the next three months.
