Rembrandt’s most famous painting hides a poisonous secret

• The Night Watch is one of the most analyzed paintings in the world, but its secrets remain
• Rembrandt used unusual pigments to create golden glow
• The complexity of the Dutch painting genius’s palette posed a formidable challenge for researchers
• Findings suggest that a wider variety of toxic pigments existed in 17th-century Europe than previously thought

this Night patrol (2nd Sector shooters led by Captain France Bannink Coke) One of the most famous works in the history of paintingIt has been examined countless times from top to bottom, and countless studies have analyzed its subject matter, history, social context, the painter’s technique, the materials used, etc. But this 363×437 cm oil on canvas masterpiece created in 1642 still has secrets, one of which has been revealed.

Funny complex color palette

For a long time, no one knew how Rembrandt created the shimmering gold. Now it turns out that The secret lies in the unusual paint combinationThe artist appears to have deliberately combined these toxic substances with other colors to create the golden hue, according to a study published in the journal Heritage Science. From a study.

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The discovery is part of a larger “Operation Night Watch” research and conservation project, which began in 2019 and aims to better understand Rembrandt’s masterpiece. ScienceAlert concluded:.

According to art historians Rembrandt His palette displayed “an almost comical level of complexity”, but until recently little was known about the colours he mixed for his most famous work, The Night Watch. An X-ray of another Rembrandt painting In 2017, he discovered a completely new pigment on the palette of Dutch painters: A yellow-orange dye containing arsenic, the so-called artificial orpiment.

Deadly light

In the 17th century, some rich pigments, such as orpiment or realgar, were produced by adding extra arsenic or sulfur to heated natural arsenic-sulfur ores. For the gold color of the night watch, use some from Acetone The researchers used a microscope to find that this was Rembrandt’s He used a small amount of bright orange paint to bring out the shadows in the gold embroidery.which can be seen on the sleeves and embroidered leather jacket of a militiaman.

The two arsenic sulfide pigments (red/orange and yellow) were either mixed by Rembrandt to produce gold or sold to him after being mixed in this way in Amsterdam. A similar pigment mixture observed in another contemporary artist suggests that The latter is more realisticOverall, according to the results, in 17th century Europe Toxic pigments The scope is wider than historians had previously imagined.

“The presence of paracorium on European paintings and artifacts has been confirmed only in a few cases to date,” the researchers wrote. Rembrandt may have embarked on a revolutionary pathbut further analysis of the use of the material in the painting may reveal that he was just one of many artists who used the toxic pigment paraben in their paintings during the 17th century – Science Alert Warning The secrets are far from over.