{"id":249597,"date":"2025-09-23T18:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T18:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249597\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T18:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T18:33:09","slug":"rembrandt-copied-another-artists-canine-for-his-famous-night-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249597\/","title":{"rendered":"Rembrandt copied another artist’s canine for his famous ‘Night Watch’"},"content":{"rendered":"

AMSTERDAM — 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.<\/p>\n

Anne Lenders, a curator at the city’s landmark Rijksmuseum<\/a>, said Tuesday that it was more or less by accident that she discovered that the barking dog in Rembrandt van Rijn\u2019s famous \u201cNight Watch\u201d is a near-identical copy of one that features in a 1619 pen and ink drawing by fellow Dutch artist Adriaen van de Venne.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn’t looking for this; it was really unexpected,\u201d Lenders said in the glass room where \u201cNight Watch\u201d is undergoing extensive restoration.<\/p>\n

She 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 \u2014 which turned out to be part of the Rijksmuseum’s own vast collection \u2014 was also on display<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resemblance is so strong that at the very first moment I thought he (Rembrandt) must have used this,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

That’s when the research started: a comparison of Van de Venne’s and Rembrandt’s dogs; their pose, even the collar they wear.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe head turns in exact the same angle with the mouth slightly opened. … Both dogs have long hair and ears that hang vertical,\u201d said Lenders.<\/p>\n

In the \u201cNight Watch,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The discovery is the latest in a series of revelations to emerge during a yearslong project to reexamine<\/a> the 379.5 by 453.5-centimeter (149.4 by 178.5-inch) canvas using modern techniques. \u201cOperation Night Watch\u201d began in 2019 with an extensive study of the painting and is continuing with restoration work that is likely to take years to complete.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne tends to think, well, it\u2019s been researched so well, we know everything about it,” Rijksmuseum Director Taco Dibbits said. “But the great thing with great art is that you always keep discovering things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never have a conclusion on which breed it is,\u201d Dibbits said. \u201cBut it\u2019s definitely very much loved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AMSTERDAM — It didn’t exactly take dogged detective work for an art sleuth in Amsterdam to solve a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":249598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[132322,347,648,1032,1033,171,57,1165,67,132,68,5548,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-249597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-132322","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-visual-arts","20":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115255050741527292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}