The Night Watch (De Nachtwacht)

Painted in 1642, this massive canvas is one of the most celebrated works of the Dutch Golden Age, and arguably the most famous painting in the Rijksmuseum. Rembrandt was 36 when he completed it, at the peak of his Amsterdam career, having built his reputation as the city's most sought-after portraitist. The painting shows a militia company led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, dressed in black with a red sash, giving orders to his lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, who wears a dazzling yellow coat. Rather than arranging his subjects in the stiff, static rows typical of Dutch group portraiture, Rembrandt staged them mid-action, frozen in a moment of organized chaos as the company prepares to march out.

The title is actually a misnomer, a later invention. The scene almost certainly takes place in daylight, but centuries of varnish darkened the canvas so dramatically that viewers assumed it depicted a nighttime scene. A cleaning in 1947 restored much of the original brightness. Rembrandt's genius for light, what art historians call his chiaroscuro, is everywhere here: deep shadows press in from the edges while certain figures seem to glow from within. The painting also marked a turning point in his life. The same year he finished it, his wife Saskia died, and the personal difficulties and financial troubles his Wikipedia biography describes would follow him for the rest of his career.