'Unexpected' Find in Rembrandt's Most Famous Piece

It didn't exactly take dogged detective work for an art sleuth in Amsterdam to solve a canine conundrum dating back to the Dutch Golden Age. Anne Lenders, a curator at the city's landmark Rijksmuseum, said Tuesday that it was more or less by accident that she discovered that the barking dog in Rembrandt van Rijn's famous The Night Watch is a near-identical copy of one that features in a 1619 pen-and-ink drawing by fellow Dutch artist Adriaen van de Venne. "I wasn't looking for this; it was really unexpected," Lenders told the AP from the glass room where The Night Watch is undergoing extensive restoration.

Lenders was visiting an exhibition at the Zeeuws Museum in the southern Netherlands when her eye fell on a picture of a dog by van de Venne that was printed in a book by the poet Jacob Cats. The original drawing—which turned out to be part of the Rijksmuseum's own vast collection—was also on display. "The resemblance is so strong that at the very first moment I thought [Rembrandt] must have used this," she added. That's when the research started, with a comparison of van de Venne's and Rembrandt's dogs, including their pose and even the collar they wear. "The head turns [at exactly] the same angle with the mouth slightly opened. ... Both dogs have long hair and ears that hang vertical," said Lenders.

In The Night Watch, the dog adds tension to a dark corner of the crowded composition, crouching and apparently barking near a drummer called Jacob Jorisz and just behind one of the iconic 1642 painting's main characters, Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch. One thing the Rijksmuseum couldn't figure out was exactly what kind of dog it is, with expert opinions divided between a French or a Dutch breed. Most likely, the two artists used a little poetic license. The discovery is the latest in a series of revelations to emerge during a yearslong project to reexamine the huge canvas using modern techniques. "Operation Night Watch" began in 2019 with an extensive study of the painting and is continuing with restoration work that's likely to take years to complete.