A militia group portrait so large it has been cut down, rolled, buried and rebuilt into its own gallery.
Artist
Rembrandt van Rijn
Date
1642
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
379.5 × 453.5 cm
Location
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
History
What the record shows
Commissioned by the militia company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq for the Kloveniersdoelen in Amsterdam.
It was trimmed on all four sides in 1715 to fit a wall in Amsterdam Town Hall, permanently removing three figures from the left of the composition.
During the Second World War the canvas was removed from its stretcher, rolled onto a cylinder and stored in a bunker at Maastricht — still the reference case for large-canvas evacuation planning.
