The Night Watch

Rembrandt was commissioned in 1640–1642 by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq to paint a group portrait of his Amsterdam civic guard company. Rather than the conventional stiff, formal group portrait of the period — all heads the same size, arranged in rows — Rembrandt created a scene of dynamic movement, with figures emerging from shadow into torchlight and the company apparently preparing to march out.

The painting was trimmed on all four sides at some point in the late 17th or early 18th century to fit a smaller space in Amsterdam's Town Hall — a significant loss including two figures on the left. It was not called "The Night Watch" until the 19th century, when centuries of yellowed varnish made it appear to depict a night scene. Cleaning in the 1940s revealed the daylight, but the name had already become fixed.