In 1715, Amsterdam moved Rembrandt’s Night Watch to City Hall. It did not fit.
So the city cut strips from all four sides of the canvas, including 64.4 centimetres from the left. The missing pieces have never been found.
But a small contemporary copy attributed to Gerrit Lundens preserves enough of the earlier composition to show what changed. Put it beside the surviving Night Watch and the loss is not just empty background: figures disappear, the crowd shifts, the standard gains space, and the two officers move away from the centre.
This film follows The Night Watch back to the Kloveniersdoelen, through the civic-guard portraits that surrounded it, and into the 1715 decision that permanently changed the painting generations came to know.
ARTWORK & IMAGE CREDITS
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Watch (Militia Company of District II under Captain Frans Banninck Cocq), 1642 — Rijksmuseum, SK-C-5 / Amsterdam Museum. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / PDM.
Gerrit Lundens, after Rembrandt, The Company of Captain Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch (‘The Nightwatch’), after 1642 — National Gallery, London, NG289; long-term loan to Rijksmuseum, SK-C-1453. Source image: National Gallery / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / PDM.
Jacob van Meurs (possibly), View of the Kloveniersdoelen in Amsterdam, 1663–1664 — Rijksmuseum, RP-P-AO-25-25-2. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / CC0.
Gerrit Berckheyde, The Town Hall on Dam Square, Amsterdam, 1672 — Rijksmuseum, SK-A-34. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / CC0.
Joachim von Sandrart, civic guardsmen under Captain Cornelis Bicker and Lieutenant Frederick van Banchem, 1640 — Rijksmuseum, SK-C-393. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / PDM.
Govert Flinck, Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of District XVIII in Amsterdam, under Captain Albert Dircksz Bas and Lieutenant Lucas Pietersz Conijn, 1645 — Rijksmuseum, SK-C-371. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / CC0.
Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of District IV in Amsterdam, under Captain Jan Claesz van Vlooswijck and Lieutenant Gerrit Hudde, 1642 — Rijksmuseum, SK-C-1177. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / CC0.
Bartholomeus van der Helst, Militia Company of District VIII in Amsterdam under Captain Roelof Bicker, c. 1640–1643 — Rijksmuseum, SK-C-375. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / PDM.
Jacob Adriaensz Backer, Officers and Other Civic Guardsmen of District V in Amsterdam, under Captain Cornelis de Graeff and Lieutenant Hendrick Lauwrensz, 1642 — Rijksmuseum, SK-C-1174. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. CC0.
Govert Flinck, Portrait of the Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1642 — Rijksmuseum, SK-C-370. Source image: Rijksmuseum / Wikimedia Commons. Public domain / CC0.
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