Even minute pigment particles in the paint of De Nachtwacht have now been brought into sharp focus.

Researchers have succeeded in taking an extremely detailed photo of Rembrandt’s famous painting The Night Watch. Never before could you admire Rembrandt’s masterpiece in this quality. In fact, it’s the largest and most detailed photograph of a work of art ever produced.

Technical details

The photo (click here to admire it) is 717 gigapixels – or 717 billion pixels – in size. This makes it the largest digital image of a work of art ever created. The distance between two pixels is 5 micrometers (0.005 millimeters). To create this image, a 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D 400 MS camera captured 8439 individual photos measuring 5.5cm x 4.1cm. These were then stitched together by means of artificial intelligence to form a large image. That resulted in a file of 5.6 terabytes.

Operation Night Watch
The new photo was taken as part of Operation Night Watch; the largest ever investigation into The Night Watch. Experts use the latest and most advanced technology to determine how best to preserve the masterpiece for future generations. Researchers do this in front of the public in a specially designed glass space.

The individual shots had a depth of field of only 125 micrometers (1/8 millimeters). To ensure that every photo was in focus, the surface of the painting was first scanned with lasers and the camera had to be fine-tuned before the photo was taken. Immediately after taking each photo, a so-called neural network checked for color and sharpness.

World Achievement

It resulted in an amazing end product. “Creating this image was an incredible challenge,” says Robert Erdmann, senior scientist at the Rijksmuseum. “A lot of people thought it was impossible and thought the team was crazy that we were going to try this at all. We have outdone ourselves and that can safely be called a world performance.”

Zoom in

Thanks to this new and extremely detailed photo you can get even closer to The Night Watch. Even minute pigment particles in the paint have now become razor-sharp.

Zoom in on The Night Watch. Image: Rijksmuseum

“Researchers have succeeded in pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible,” says Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits. “Thanks to this image, the public can marvel at Rembrandt’s masterpiece in even smaller details.”

Zoom in on The Night Watch. Image: Rijksmuseum

The Rijksmuseum has outdone itself with the new record of De Nachtwacht. The photo is four times as sharp as the photo that the museum published of the artwork about a year and a half ago. That photo was 44.8 gigapixels in size and the distance between the pixels 20 micrometers (0.02 mm).

Study

With the new image, scientists are able to study the painting even better from a distance. All future aging processes in the painting can also be tracked even more accurately. This photo is sharp enough that neural networks can now examine the painting in no time for similarities in pigment particles or the mapping of all lead soaps. This was not possible with the previous photo.

The second phase of Operation Night Watch will start in just over two weeks. Then the treatment of the painting is started. First, the canvas is stretched on a new stretcher. This is necessary because there are so-called ‘deformations’ in the canvas. Especially in the top left corner some waves are clearly visible. Although this requires an immediate approach, it can be easily remedied without any risks for the future. Then, step by step, it is examined whether other restoration treatments are also required.