Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum organizes online live coverage of the restoration of Rembrandt's Night Watch

Have you always wanted to attend a restoration? Soon you will be able to do so online! The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has announced that restoration work on The Night Watch, the famous masterpiece by Rembrandt (Leiden, 1606 - Amsterdam, 1669) created in 1642, will be filmed live with a web cam and broadcast live online. The work is scheduled to begin in July 2019, coinciding with the centenary of the painter’s death, while the duration is not specified, as it will take several years, according to Taco Dibbits, director of the museum.

The cost of the work is also not precise, but there is talk of several million, however necessary because, Dibbits says, “The Night Watch is one of the most famous paintings in the world and it belongs to everyone. And that’s why we decided to restore it in front of everyone.” Dibbits even compares the restoration of the painting to that of the Sistine Chapel.

The Night Watch, considered the Dutch artist’s most important work, is an oil-on-canvas painting (359×438 cm) depicting Dutch Captain Frans Banning Cocq, along with his lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburgh, as he orders his soldiers to begin marching. Rembrandt was commissioned by Frans Banning Cocq himself. In 1975 it was defaced by a vandal, and the same was repeated in 1990. It is a work, says a note from the Rijksmuseum, “celebrated for its strong and energetic composition, with the musketeers painted in movement rather than pose.” And it is also considered “Rembrandt’s most ambitious painting.”

Moreover, 2019 will be “Rembrandt’s year,” since it marks anniversary number 350 of the artist’s death: to mark the celebrations, an exhibition, All the Rembrandts of the Rijksmuseum, will be staged from Feb. 15 to June 10, 2019, bringing together for the first time the entire collection of Rembrandt’s paintings, drawings and etchings. Again, the Rembrandt-Velázquez exhibition, from Oct. 11, 2019 to Jan. 19, 2020, will enact a comparison between the two great artists.

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum organizes online live coverage of the restoration of Rembrandt's Night Watch

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