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Famous Rembrandt Painting Will Be Restored as Visitors Watch

Amsterdam, Netherlands —(Map)

How do you clean a huge 400-year-old painting that is a national treasure? If you said, “Very carefully,” you’d be right. You probably didn’t say, “With the whole world watching.” But that’s exactly what the Rijksmuseum, the Netherland’s national museum, is planning on doing.

Rembrandt's The Night Watch
The Night Watch is the most important painting in the Netherlands.
It was painted by Rembrandt between 1639 and 1642.
The Rijksmuseum will let visitors watch as the painting is restored.
Source: Rijksmuseum.nl.)

The Night Watch is the most important painting in the history of the Netherlands. It was painted between 1639 and 1642 by the Dutch* artist, Rembrandt van Rijn, more commonly known as Rembrandt. The painting is about 12 feet high by 14 feet wide (3.5 meters high by 4.5 meters wide). It was even larger when Rembrandt painted it, but it was trimmed in 1715 to make it fit better in the Amsterdam Town Hall.

Rembrandt self-portrait, 1640.
This is a painting that the Dutch painter Rembrandt made of himself in 1640.
That’s the same time period when he was painting The Night Watch.
(Source: Rembrandt , via Wikimedia Commons.)

Although the painting is very dark and is now called “The Night Watch“, it is not actually a painting of the night time. It shows a group of soldiers coming out of a dark area into the light of day. The difference between the dark and light parts of the painting are one of the things that make it famous.

The other thing that makes the painting famous is the fact that the soldiers are active and doing things they might have done in real life. Before Rembrandt painted this picture, groups of soldiers were always painted standing stiffly in rows.

Museum Director Taco Dibbits takes a close look at the painting.
Museum Director Taco Dibbits takes a close look at the painting.
The painting is famous for the way it uses dark and light.
Before The Night Watch, paintings of soldiers were very stiff.
(Source: Rijksmuseum.nl.)

For Dutch people, this painting is one of their greatest treasures. The country was shocked in 1975 when someone cut the painting with a knife. That time, 40 years ago, was the last time that the painting has been repaired.

Since then, the painting has become dirtier. It has gotten a slightly cloudy coating on it that makes it hard to see the painting’s true colors. That’s why the museum is going to “restore” it – to clean it and try and make it look like it did back when Rembrandt first painted it.

Experts examine Rembrandt's The Night Watch.
The museum expects the whole project will take a few years.
They don’t even plan to start cleaning until next July.
Until then, experts will study the painting and plan how they will restore it.
(Source: Photo: Daniel Maissan, Rijksmuseum.nl.)

Working on such a famous and important painting is a job that can’t be done quickly. The museum expects the whole project will take a few years. They don’t even plan to start on it until next July. Until then, experts hired by the museum will be carefully studying the painting with x-rays and other tools, and planning how they will restore it.

The Rijksmuseum does not want its visitors to miss out on seeing The Night Watch for several years. It is their most famous painting and gets over 2 million visitors a year. Instead, the museum plans to build a special clear glass case around the painting. This will allow the experts to work, but also allow visitors to see both the painting and the work the experts are doing.

Architect's drawing of what the glass enclosure for Rembrandt's The Night Watch will look like.
The Rijksmuseum does not want its visitors to miss out on seeing The Night Watch.
The museum will build a special glass case so experts can work and visitors can watch.
This picture shows an artist’s idea of what the glass case will look like.
(Source: Wilmotte & Associés Architectes, Rijksmuseum.nl.)

For people who can’t visit the Netherlands, the museum plans to set up a live camera to show the painting’s progress over the Internet.

In February, before the work on The Night Watch begins, the painting will be part of the museum’s special celebration marking 350 years since the death of Rembrandt.

* Dutch means something or someone from the Netherlands.

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