World invited to watch museum restore Rembrandt's 'Night Watch'

Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum on Monday began the biggest ever restoration of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch”, building a giant glass case around the famed painting so the world can see the work carried out live. In what has been compared to a military operation, experts at the museum in the Dutch capital will spend a year studying the 1642 masterpiece before embarking on a huge makeover that could take several years more. The multi-million-euro revamp of the tableau — the survivor of a difficult history including several acts of vandalism and a period in hiding from the Nazis — will also be livestreamed online. “More than two and a half million people come and see it each year. It belongs to everybody who lives in the Netherlands, and the world,” Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits told reporters. “And we felt that the public has the right to see what happens to that painting.” Experts hope the research could also shed more light on the mysteries of how the greatest artist of the Dutch Gold