The Night Watch

History

Its real subject is the militia company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, whose members paid Rembrandt about 1,600 guilders for it. Militia portraits usually lined the men up; Rembrandt painted them on the move, in deep shadow and sudden light. The name came much later, when dark varnish made the scene look like night; the varnish only came off in the 1940s. In 1715 it was cut down on all four sides to fit a wall in Amsterdam's town hall, and the strips were never found. In 2019 the Rijksmuseum began restoring it in public view, behind glass.