During the treatment of The Night Watch in 1975/76, two inserts – old repairs of even older holes in the painting – were replaced, because their threads did not run parallel to those of the original canvas and their adhesion was insufficient. Remarkably, one of these inserts, coming from the centre of the drum, was saved between the papers of the conservation documentation of the painting. During Operation Night Watch this piece, measuring circa 12 x 8 cm, was examined, because it turned out to be a valuable research object.
Logbook
From a handwritten logbook we know that the insert was removed from the drum on 20 October 1975. This precise date is important, because it tells us that the insert still has the varnish layers, that were removed from The Night Watch during the 1975/76 treatment, after 20 October 1975. Further archival research, especially of old photos, has shown that the insert even pre-dates the treatment of 1945/47. At that time the age of this old repair was thought to be from the eighteenth century. This assumption, that was based on visual observation alone, can at this moment not be confirmed, nor denied.
Well-documented
Even though the conservation history of The Night Watch is well-documented, there is also much that we do not (yet) know. Was the hole made during the seventeenth century, while hanging at the Kloveniersdoelen? This is not unthinkable. In the Amsterdam city ledgers of 1698, the repair of holes in the paintings of the Kloveniersdoelen is mentioned as activity. But we must remember that at that moment, dozens of paintings were hanging in the Kloveniersdoelen.
Hammer
In the Trippenhuis 150 years later, in the 1840s, there is mention of a carpenter’s hammer that had gone right through the painting. Is the hole in the drum a result of this accident? If it is, it would mean that the insert that was removed on 20 October 1975, is not from the eighteenth, but from the nineteenth century. Perhaps scientific research of the insert during Operation Night Watch will give us more decisive answers, but this is not guaranteed.
