Night Watch, the

(Proper title The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch) group portrait in oils by Rembrandt 1642 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), commemorating volunteer militia enlisted to defend Amsterdam – the group is preparing to march. By concentrating on action rather than static representation, Rembrandt set a new convention for the group portrait. The work acquired its current title ‘The Night Watch’ in the 18th century, by which time the painting had become obscured by darkened varnish (since stripped off).

It contains 34 life-size figures, not arranged in the usual way of such groups, which gave equal value to each portrait, but with a life-like informality which seems to have given some offence, or at least to have caused the artist's vogue as a portraitist to wane. The picture has been cut down on either side and in the foreground (where there was the beginning of a bridge). A list of names was painted over the gate after Rembrandt's death. A small copy of the complete original, however, was made 1660 by Gerrit Lundens, before these alterations and disfigurements, and is in the National Gallery, London.