An Amsterdam civic militia company is setting off: the captain gives the order, the drummer beats his drum, musketeers load their guns, and a girl in gold flashes through the crowd. Rembrandt turned the static group portrait into a drama full of movement; this huge canvas is a Dutch national treasure.
Key facts
- Artist
- Rembrandt van Rijn1606–1669 · Dutch
- Date
- 1642
- Period
- Baroque1600–1720
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 379.5 × 453.5 cm
- Location
- Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#261C10#433523#605039#8B7A5EBackground
Seventeenth-century Dutch cities had civic militia companies, originally to defend the town but increasingly social clubs for prosperous citizens. Members pooled money to commission group portraits for their guild halls, each paying according to his prominence in the picture.
It shows the musketeer company led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, and hung in the great hall of the Kloveniersdoelen, the musketeers' headquarters in Amsterdam. Its original title was long; the name “Night Watch” appeared only in the eighteenth century.
In 1715 the painting was moved to Amsterdam's Town Hall; because the wall was too small, it was trimmed on all four sides, most on the left, losing two figures. A small seventeenth-century copy in the National Gallery, London, shows what it originally looked like.
Technique & composition
Traditional group portraits lined up their sitters with every face clearly visible. Rembrandt instead caught the company in action: raising the flag, loading guns, talking, staggered in depth and full of movement. gives the order to march, and the two seem about to step out of the canvas.
Rembrandt used to concentrate light on the captain, the lieutenant and , leaving others partly in shadow. The effect is intensely dramatic, though it also meant that not every paying member was clearly visible.
The captain's outstretched left hand casts a shadow on the lieutenant's pale yellow coat, a detail that shows Rembrandt's precise observation of light and makes the space between the two men tangible.
Details
Symbolism
The girl in gold
The glowing girl is not a member of the company but a personification of it. A chicken hangs from her waist; its claws were the emblem of the musketeers, and her golden dress echoes the company's colours.
Three stages of the musket
Three figures are loading, firing and blowing away powder, together showing the full sequence of handling a musket, like a drill manual celebrating the musketeers' skill.
Civic pride
The Dutch Republic had recently won its independence from Spain, and the militia embodied citizens defending their own city. The painting's grand spectacle expresses Amsterdam's prosperity and confidence.
Stories
- Did you know?
The Night Watch actually shows a daytime scene. Its varnish darkened over time, making it look like night, and the name stuck.
- Did you know?
The painting has been attacked three times: slashed by a shoemaker in 1911, badly cut with a knife in 1975, and sprayed with acid in 1990. Each time it was restored.
- Did you know?
During the Second World War the painting was rolled up and hidden in bunkers and caves in the Netherlands, safe from the fighting.
- Did you know?
Since 2019 the Rijksmuseum has carried out a major research and conservation project called Operation Night Watch, conducted in a glass chamber in full view of visitors.
Legacy
The Night Watch raised the group portrait to the level of history painting and is the most ambitious work of the Dutch Golden Age. It is the centrepiece of the Rijksmuseum, whose building was designed around the gallery that houses it.
A popular legend claims the painting lost Rembrandt his clients and led to his bankruptcy, but this is romantic myth; he continued to receive important commissions, and his financial ruin had other causes.
