Rembrandt masterpiece The Night Watch to be restored – and you can watch it all unfold online
The public will be invited to watch the intimate conservation process, both up close in the gallery itself and via an internet live-stream
Amsterdam’s famous Rijksmuseum is to restore the Rembrandt masterpiece The Night Watch under the full gaze of the public, as well as live-streaming it online, the museum said on Tuesday.
The unique project starting in July 2019 will let art lovers see behind the normally secretive process as one of the world’s best loved paintings is brought back to its full glory.
The multimillion euro restoration starting in July 2019 will be open to the two million people a year who come to the gallery in the capital of the Netherlands to see the Dutch master’s 1642 tableau.
But the painstaking work on the piece, which hangs in the gallery of honour in the museum, will also be carried online so people around the world can see it be restored inch by inch.
“The Night Watch by Rembrandt is one of the most famous paintings in the world and we feel we have to preserve it for future generations,” Rijksmuseum General Director Taco Dibbits said.
“Over two million people a year come to see The Night Watch, it’s a painting that everybody loves, and we feel that the world has the right to see what we will do with it.”
The painting of a citizens’ militia completed in 1642 has suffered in the past.