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Guardian: Restoration of Rembrandt’s Night Watch will be done under 'eyes of the world'

The restoration and conservation are 'expected to be a slow and intricate project' and will take several years

© AP Photo/Peter Dejong

MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. The Night Watch by Rembrandt (1642), one of the world’s most spectacular paintings, will undergo restoration but won’t be removed from the exposition of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. According to the Guardian, art lovers will be invited to watch the intimate conservation process, both up close in the gallery itself and via an internet livestream.

"It will be carried out under the eyes of the world, and people will be able to follow the conservation wherever they are, whenever they want," art historian and head of the Rijksmuseum Taco Dibbits told the Guardian.

"Because it’s such an amazingly important painting and so many people want to see it, we feel we have to keep showing it to the public even as we’re restoring it," he added.

Dibbits said that the restoration and conservation are expected to be a slow and intricate project, which will take several years and cost millions of euros.

It will involve experts from all over the world and will be carried out in several stages.

Firstly the experts will research the painting, mapping it millimeter by millimeter using a scanner, in a process which will take around 70 days. Only then will the team make a plan, determining precisely how to proceed with the restoration, the Guardian reported.

Last time the museum had to restore the painting in the 1970s after a knife attack by Willam de Rijk, an unemployed school teacher. De Rijk was identified with a mental disorder and sent to a psychiatric hospital where he committed suicide in 1976.

"We continuously monitor the painting and noticed that the restoration of the 1970s had stared to discolor," Dibbits told the Guardian. The restoration will start in July 2019.

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