Lost Edges of Rembrandt's 'Night Watch' Are Restored Using Artificial Intelligence

In 1642, Rembrandt van Rijn completed a dynamic painting called The Night Watch, which depicts the captain of an Amsterdam city militia urging his men into battle. But in 1715 someone cut all four sides of the canvas to hang it on a wall in Amsterdam's Town Hall, and the strips seemingly vanished into thin air. Now, researchers have restored the work to its original size using A.I. As Mike Corder reports for the Associated Press (AP), experts used a combination of scanners, X-rays and 528 digital exposures to recreate and print the missing portions of the canvas during "Operation Night Watch," a multi-million dollar restoration effort that began in 2019. Today, the newly created shreds are affixed to the edges of the painting, which is currently hanging in Rijksmuseum's honor gallery in Amsterdam.