The company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburgh prepares to march out, better known as the Night Watch, is a militia painting by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and was completed in 1642.
The canvas depicts the two archers from the title, accompanied by other militiamen, as well as some extras, as they line up. The Night Watch is one of the most famous paintings in the world.
The painting was Rembrandt's contribution to a project of seven works, six militia pieces and a portrait of the target men of the Kloveniersschutters, commissioned by Amsterdam's militia guild for the grand banquet hall of the Kloveniersdoelen. It is Rembrandt's first and only militia piece. Compared to other canvases of the genre, Rembrandt's work is a lively and bold composition, in which the militia does not pose in the usual static arrangement, but is depicted while grouping. The canvas is a rich work of baroque complexity, in which realism and symbolism are skillfully combined in a masterful integration of movement, light and colour, brought into harmony by a delicate pattern of chiaroscuro. In these aspects, the Night Watch represents the pinnacle of Rembrandt's painting.
