Egg or no egg, the analysis of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch leaves the experts unsatisfied
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Restorers are still struggling to unravel the mysteries of the Flemish masterpiece, on which they have been working since 2019.
How to recreate Rembrandt’s pictorial technique? The scientists working on The Night Watch , think they have found a new clue about the mixture of products used by the painter. The restoration of the 1642 painting, soberly titled “Operation Night Watch”, began in 2019. It is giving a hard time to the restorers of the Rijksmuseum and the Akzo Nobel laboratory – a company specializing in Dulux paints.
To restore the canvas, they need to find the recipes used by the Flemish master. And it is at the level of the impasto – a technique of applying paint used by Rembrandt to give depth – of the painting that the research is concentrated.
Read alsoIn the footsteps of Rembrandt, in the Holland of the Golden Age
Egg yolk could be one of the ingredients used by Rembrandt. In any case, this is what Katrien Keune, the scientific manager of the Rijksmuseum, told the British newspaper The Guardian, last Wednesday. The researchers had detected it, during previous studies, in a “small area of the canvas”, she clarified. They first thought that the artist mixed it with linseed oil and lead oxide. The goal: to create a thicker paint.
The heavy task of determining the famous impasto recipe was entrusted to Gerard van Ewijk, head of research and development at Akzo Nobel. Difficult mission if any. Scientists have had the greatest difficulty in determining the painter’s technique. Use of wax, scrapings of paint or even bitumen of Judea, a pigment which would have explained the blackening of the painting: all the hypotheses have been raised. In any case, scientists remain cautious.
“The reason for the presence of egg yolk is still a bit of a mystery,” tempers Gerard van Ewijk. If the researcher does not want to go too far, it is because according to him Rembrandt did not really need egg yolk to obtain this texture. “By mixing linseed oil and white lead, you can create the perfect impasto”, explains Gerard van Ewijk. A plausible alternative with the ingredients of the time.
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It has been forty years since any restoration has been carried out on the colossal Night Watch. Since 2019, experts have been studying the work inside the Rijksmuseum gallery, in full view of visitors.
Read alsoThe woman in the blue coatby Deon Meyer: the painting of the Flemish master
Last December, the head of the Department of Paintings and Sculptures at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam announced that he had discovered a sketch hidden under the layers of paint. This find revealed in particular the genesis of the centerpiece of the Rijksmuseum according to its director Taco Dibbits. He said on that occasion: “We always suspected that Rembrandt must have sketched on the canvas before embarking on this incredibly complex composition, but we had no proof.”
Now the team must decide by December if they will make the risky attempt to clean the canvas. In particular the layers of varnish stuck during previous restorations. The research carried out on The Night Watch would have been beneficial to everyone. Especially at Akzo Nobel. These discoveries of pictorial composition made it possible to work on that of Polycell, the brand of wall putty sold in the United Kingdom by Dulux.
SEE ALSO – Exhibition: Immersive journey in the painting of Paul Cézanne
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