Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum has started the restoration of Rembrandt van Rijn's world-famous painting “The Night Watch.”
The painting will firstly be removed from its wooden frame, the museum in Amsterdam announced on Wednesday. Then it will be stretched on a special aluminium frame. The tension of the canvas has to be distributed more evenly.
This treatment is expected to take two to three months and is the second phase of what the museum has termed Operation Night Watch.
This largest examination of the masterpiece to date had begun in the summer of 2019 and will be carried out in the exhibition hall itself, the Gallery of Honor, in full view of the public. At the moment, however, the museum is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
How long the restoration will take and all that needs to be done is still unclear.
"We will now be using all the knowledge we have accumulated in the past two and a half years of research on 'The Night Watch' to get the painting into the best possible condition, so that people can enjoy the masterpiece for a very long time to come," said the director of the museum, Taco Dibbits.
"The Night Watch" depicts the Amsterdam Citizen's Watch and is about 380 centimeters (149.61 inches) high and 453 centimeters wide. It is the most famous work by Dutch master Rembrandt (1606-69).
