This photograph shows staff at the Rijksmuseum holding their breath as Rembrandt’s Night Watch (1642) is unrolled on its return to the Amsterdam museum in June 1945, at the end of the Second World War. The work had been shipped to Kasteel Radboud in Medemblik, north of Amsterdam, for safekeeping. Since its wartime evacuation, the canvas has been subjected to two assaults by members of the public, the most recent in 1990, when a “confused” man sprayed it with sulphuric acid. Fortunately, the substance did not penetrate the varnish.
