{"id":167534,"date":"2025-09-25T03:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167534\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T03:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T03:30:07","slug":"new-research-reveals-source-for-dog-in-rembrandts-night-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167534\/","title":{"rendered":"New Research Reveals Source for Dog in Rembrandt\u2019s \u2018Night Watch\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe Rijksmuseum<\/a> in Amsterdam announced last week that the dog depicted in the lower righthand corner of Rembrandt<\/a> van Rijn\u2019s Night Watch (1642) was based on a popular drawing from the 17th-century.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Night Watch<\/a> is currently undergoing an extensive study and restoration in a specially designed glass chamber located in the museum\u2019s galleries that began in 2019. Called Operation Night Watch<\/a>, the initiative \u201cbrings scientists, restorers and curators together with experts from our project partner AkzoNobel to maintain the painting in optimal condition for the future,\u201d according to the museum\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tThis new revelation came about after Anne Lenders, curator of Operation Night Watch, visited an exhibition of Adriaen van de Venne at the Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg, the Netherlands. \u201cWhen I saw the drawing in an exhibition, I immediately thought of the dog in The Night Watch,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cThe dog\u2019s head, collar and pose have such a strong resemblance that it can only mean Rembrandt used this drawing as a source of inspiration. The follow-up research has confirmed this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLenders told the New York Times that it was unclear if Rembrandt used as inspiration the van de Venne version, which was the title page for Jacob Cats\u2019s 1620 book Self-stryt (Self-Conflict) or another engraving that copied van de Venne\u2019s dog by Fran\u00e7ois Schillemans and was used for the title page of a different book. \u201cBut we know that he must have been familiar with one of the two,\u201d she told the Times.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dog is a beloved part of Rembrandt\u2019s painting, if a bit of an outlier to the overall composition, which depicts the civic guard as they head out of an evening patrol. A video<\/a> produced by the Rijksmuseum, titled \u201cDid Rembrandt steal a dog?,\u201d describes the animal as a \u201cmysterious creature\u201d and \u201ca blur of fur,\u201d who is likely \u201ctense from the noise of the beating drum and the firing musket.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tComparison of the dogs by Rembrandt and Adriaen Van de Venne. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy Rijksmuseum<\/p>\n

\n\tAs part of the multimillion dollar restoration project, which is also removing yellow varnishes from The Night Watch, researches subjected the portion of the painting with the dog to MA-XRF (macro X-ray fluorescence) analysis and discovered an under-painted sketch, showing the dog \u201cwith its right front leg more bent, and the chest closer to the ground\u201d or \u201ceven more similar to Van de Venne\u2019s drawing,\u201d according to a press release.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement, Rijksmuseum general director Taco Dibbits said, \u201cIt is remarkable that new discoveries are still being made about one of the most studied paintings in the world, almost 400 years after it was made. This finding gives us yet more insight into Rembrandt\u2019s thought processes when creating this work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam announced last week that the dog depicted in the lower righthand corner of Rembrandt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75,86275,86276,86277,80779,86278],"class_list":{"0":"post-167534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-operation-night-watch","16":"tag-rembrandt","17":"tag-rembrandt-van-rijn","18":"tag-rijksmuseum","19":"tag-the-night-watch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}