Ultra High Resolution Photo of Night Watch (2022)

I just watched your PyCon keynote and it's absolutely fascinating. Congratulations on the release of this amazing picture!

It will be awesome to see also different spectrum layers ( UV,IR... ).

I agree! Never judge a painting without seeing it in person. A 2D replicated digital image, no matter the resolution, is not the same as seeing the brush strokes and paint layers or the size of the painting in person. Plus the colors & lighting will be different as well. Sometimes there is even an added benefit from the environment.

Of course, high res copies of these is a great thing to do as well. The above comment should take nothing away from that. They're just different things with different purposes.

Indeed! I grew up with my Dutch grandparents in Canada and they had a print of the Night Watch at home. When I turned the corner of the Rijksmuseum and saw it, I thought it was a post of the museum wing it was in. It's HUGE!

Speaking of Rijksmuseum and seeing things in person, they maintain a small satellite exhibition at Schiphol airport[0]. It's a wonderful way to spend an hour if you're flying through and have long enough between flights to get bored but not long enough for even a short layover.

0: https://www.schiphol.nl/en/at-schiphol/discover/facilities/r...

Ouch. Indeed. Thanks for noticing this. I've reported it to our web people.

It's 925 000 px × 775 000 px which is 717 gigapixels (9 zeros).

:)

Is the painting's imagery public domain or does the museum have weird exclusive rights to licensing images for it?

Actually a more interesting question: Does this new image dataset fall under 'newer' copyright laws / rights and is it copyrighted for the next 80 or so years, or does it fall under the copyright law of the original image, that is, expired?

Perhaps it's intended to disambiguate it from the 20 µm resolution photo we released in May 2020 (the new one is 5 µm sampling resolution, so 16 times the pixel count). From the title alone one might dimly recall that past headline and assume it's a repost.

> Meanwhile, does the art restoration world place a premium on using dissimilar materials, that prevent further disintegration while fooling the eye, but are easily distinguished by future scanning techniques?

Yes - as I understand it, restoration involves careful use of solvents to remove old layers of varnish/added paint, followed by a new coat of varnish to protect the original underlying paint, followed by inpainting/overpainting (filling on cracks and/or painting over damage). This is done using materials that can be easily removed by future restorers without damaging the original. I imagine these layers would show up on a sufficiently high-res scan, too.

Fair enough. Its utility is mainly for serving as a virtual microscope for conservation purposes. For example, here [1] is a lead soap [2] particle up close, here [3] is a very detailed view of the dog showing exposed canvas, and here [4] is some retouching from a past conservation treatment in the face of the main figure. These kinds of things help us to make decisions about future conservation treatments, help to document the exact state of the painting for future comparison, and help us to appreciate Rembrandt's mastery with paint (e.g. the unintuitive way he depicts lace [5]). All in all, it should give the public a greater appreciation of how much effort we put into collection care at a museum.

[1] https://hyper-resolution.org/view.html?pointer=0.326,0.666&r...

[2] https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/conservation-and-sci...

[3] https://hyper-resolution.org/view.html?pointer=0.522,0.466&r...

[4] https://hyper-resolution.org/view.html?pointer=0.551,0.619&r...

[5] https://hyper-resolution.org/view.html?pointer=0.500,0.527&r...

Well, painters have been using varnish for centuries to add gloss and a protective coating, so clearly they had some considerations about longevity.

I've always wanted a high resolution image of the discworld night watch cover art based on this painting...

Link to an interview with Paul Kidby about the night watch cover art:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/blo...

Same here. There are several redirections (https://rijksmuseum.nl -> https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/ -> /nl) and then "Our services aren't available right now" (HTTP 503)