{"id":33257,"date":"2025-09-23T14:38:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/33257\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T14:38:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:38:10","slug":"inspiration-behind-rembrandts-barking-night-watch-dog-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/33257\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspiration behind Rembrandt\u2019s barking Night Watch dog revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rembrandt\u2019s masterpiece The Night Watch is full of dramatic postures, and one figure that brings the scene to life is the agitation of a small, excited barking dog. <\/p>\n

The dog, now faded and hidden in shadows near a militia drummer, was a ghostly presence in the right of the painting. <\/p>\n

Its origins had never been identified, until a chance discovery by a Rijksmuseum curator spotted the animal in another artist\u2019s work. <\/p>\n

\"Drawing<\/p>\n

The inspiration for Rembrandt\u2019s depiction is thought to have come from a drawing by Adriaen van de Venne<\/p>\n

\"Structural<\/p>\n

Rembrandt\u2019s dog, which has a very similar pose to Van de Venne\u2019s<\/p>\n

Anne Lenders, the curator of Operation Night Watch, the project to restore the work at the national museum in Amsterdam, was stunned to make the connection while visiting an exhibition of the works of Adriaen van de Venne (1590\u20131662), another 17th-century Dutch artist. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy eyes fell on it, in the catalogue of the exhibition and then I saw it. I immediately thought of the dog in The Night Watch. I grabbed my phone to compare it,\u201d she told the Times. \u201cI just kept staring at it and looking again and looking again. Am I really seeing this?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Side-by-side<\/p>\n

Rembrandt\u2019s dog next to Van de Venne\u2019s<\/p>\n

She was looking at a 1619 drawing by Van de Venne, depicting the temptation of Joseph by Potiphar\u2019s wife \u2014 which featured a collared hunting dog in a pose she recognised from Rembrandt\u2019s masterpiece, painted some 23 years later. <\/p>\n

The drawing had been hidden in the Rijksmuseum\u2019s own collection for more than one hundred years, but no one had previously made the connection. Rembrandt (1606-69) was known to have been inspired by Van de Venne, as he painted his own version of Joseph Accused by Potiphar\u2019s Wife in 1655, which borrowed from the older artist. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Rembrandt\u2019s old mastery of the brush revealed with high-tech photo<\/a><\/p>\n

The Night Watch (1642) depicts Amsterdam\u2019s city watch, or militia, as a potent symbol of a new civic and national pride rooted in a republican democratic order that was the Dutch \u201cgolden age\u201d of trade and art. <\/p>\n

Rembrandt was the first to paint modern figures, depicting ordinary people rather than the nobility. He kept them at the centre of a portrait, showing them in a martial and heroic way, with the barking canine \u2014 resembling a spaniel or other breed of hunting dog \u2014 adding to the moment of high drama. <\/p>\n

Lenders said: \u201cThe dog plays a really crucial role because the captain is giving the command that the company has to start marching. The drummer beats his drum and the dog reacts and starts barking. So you really have this suggestion of noise and movement. The dog really heightens the liveliness of the painting and the drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A conservator works to restore the piece<\/p>\n

The dog\u2019s breed has not been confirmed, but at least one expert has suggested that it could be a forerunner of the modern basset fauve de Bretagne, a short-legged hunting dog.<\/p>\n

The hound\u2019s appearance has long been surrounded by mystery due to its ghostly whitish appearance which was revealed by x-rays in 2021<\/a> to be due to Rembrandt\u2019s use of paint rich in chalk for preparatory sketches.<\/p>\n

\"X-ray<\/p>\n

Imaging technology in 2021 allowed the painting to be seen in greater detail<\/p>\n

Work for Operation Night Watch resulted in a detailed digital image that can be viewed on the museum\u2019s website<\/p>\n

New imaging techniques and computer technology mapped the painting and showed how the Dutch master plotted his work on the canvas almost 380 years ago, frequently changing his mind as the huge composition grew.<\/p>\n

One such revelation was that the dog was initially depicted by Rembrandt with its right front leg more bent and the chest closer to the ground, making it even more similar to Van de Venne\u2019s original drawing.<\/p>\n

It is an exciting revelation for a painting which has become a Dutch national symbol. Taco Dibbits, the director of the Rijksmuseum said: \u201cIt is remarkable that new discoveries are still being made about one of the most studied paintings in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

A restoration of The Night Watch is under way but in future the curators plan to remove varnish from the section containing the dog, to help restore it to its former glory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rembrandt\u2019s masterpiece The Night Watch is full of dramatic postures, and one figure that brings the scene to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-33257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}