Art › Amsterdam › The Rijksmuseum
The Night Watch
De Nachtwacht
An Amsterdam militia company marching out, the painting the whole Rijksmuseum was built round.
The civic guard of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq commissioned it for the hall of their guild house. Instead of a neat row of portraits, Rembrandt painted them in the commotion of moving off: the captain in black with a red sash giving the order, his lieutenant in pale gold, a drummer, muskets going off, and a girl in gold lit up among them with a chicken at her belt.
It is not a night scene: the varnish darkened over the centuries and gave it its name. In 1715 it was cut down on all four sides to fit a wall of the town hall. Since 2019 it has been restored in a glass room in the museum, where visitors can watch the work. Stand before it in 3D ›
