Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch”, a masterpiece of the Dutch Golden Age, was finally returned to its home in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum on Wednesday following nine years of extensive renovation works.
The huge oil painting, correctly titled “The Company of captain Frans Banning Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out,” has hung in an adjacent wing of the world-famous Amsterdam museum for the past nine years while the building underwent renovations.
The 17th-century painting was protected by a specially designed 300 kilo (660 pound) steel frame, a foam insulation layer and a protective blanket while it was moved back to the Nachtwachtzaal (Room of the Night Watch) in the museum.
The same “intelligent” cover, designed by Dutch electronics firm Philips with built-in temperature and humidity sensors, was used to move the painting out of the 19th-century Rijksmuseum in 2003.
Queen Beatrix is to reopen the Rijksmuseum at a gala ceremony on April 13.
