The Night Watch

The Night Watch is a large group portrait by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn, completed in the middle of the seventeenth century. It shows a militia company of Amsterdam led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and his lieutenant, shown stepping forward in a dramatic burst of light and movement, rather than lined up in a stiff row as in most such pictures. Its name came later, as dark varnish made the scene look like a night-time one, though it takes place in daylight. The painting was commissioned for the hall of the militia and now hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where its recent restoration has been carried out in public view.

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