Rijksmuseum launches Operation Night Watch, a public restoration of Rembrandt

On 8 July 2019, the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands' national museum in Amsterdam, began Operation Night Watch. It was the most extensive research and conservation project ever undertaken on Rembrandt's 1642 group portrait, The Night Watch.

The work was carried out in public. The painting was placed inside a specially built glass chamber in the museum's Gallery of Honour, so visitors could watch conservators and scientists at work, and the process was also followed online. The aim was to study the painting's condition and materials in great detail before deciding on treatment.

The project brought together restorers, scientists and art historians. They used advanced imaging and analysis techniques to examine the paint layers, the canvas and the changes the work had undergone over almost four centuries. The research was meant to guide the painting's future care and conservation.

The project mattered because The Night Watch is among the most famous works of Dutch art, and the open approach gave the public an unusual view of conservation science. The findings it produced continue to inform later research on the painting, including studies of the microbes found on its surface.