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| Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. |
The Dutch Golden Age owes much of its brilliance to the genius of Rembrandt, whose unique techniques brought a luminous quality to his paintings.
Recently, chemists at the Rijksmuseum and the University of Amsterdam have uncovered the secret behind the radiant light in Rembrandt's renowned work, The Night Watch.
Through meticulous analysis, they discovered that Rembrandt used a previously unknown pigment combination, which included lead-tin yellow and red-orange pigments made with arsenic and sulfur. This unusual blend of toxic pigments was key to achieving the painting's distinctive golden hues.
This breakthrough was part of Operation Night Watch, a comprehensive research and conservation initiative that began in 2019. The project's goal is to gain a deeper understanding of Rembrandt's masterpiece and the techniques he employed.
Art historians have long marveled at the complexity of Rembrandt's palette, but details about the specific colors used in The Night Watch were largely unknown until now.
In 2017, X-ray imaging of another Rembrandt painting revealed a new pigment, an arsenic-containing yellow to orange dye known as artificial orpiment. However, the gold in The Night Watch is derived from different pigments.
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| Cross section of paint sample seen through a light microscope, showing crystals of yellow, orange, and red pigments. (Rijksmuseum) |
In the 17th century, certain rich pigments were created by adding arsenic or sulfur to heated natural ores like orpiment or realgar. In The Night Watch, some gold hues were produced using yellow, orange, and red pigments of pararealgar.
Under a microscope, researchers found that Rembrandt used small amounts of bright orange paint to accentuate the shadows in the gold embroidery on a militia man's doublet sleeves and buff coat.
These arsenic sulfide pigments might have been mixed by Rembrandt himself, or he could have acquired them pre-mixed from suppliers in Amsterdam. The presence of similar pigment mixtures in other contemporary artworks suggests the latter is likely.
This discovery indicates that a broader range of toxic pigments was available in 17th-century Europe than previously believed. Researchers note that pararealgar has only been identified in a few European paintings and art objects to date.
Whether Rembrandt was pioneering new artistic techniques or simply one of many artists using these toxic pigments remains to be seen as further research continues.
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