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Rembrandt masterpiece ‘Night Watch’ moved back to restored Amsterdam museum before reopening

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Workers push a crate containing Dutch master Rembrandt\'s famous The Night Watch painting to its new location in the renovated Rijksmuseum, rear, in Amsterdam, Wednesday March 27, 2013. The museum will be opened officially on April 13, 2013, the crate was adorned with a reproduction of the painting. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)

AMSTERDAM – Rembrandt’s iconic masterpiece the “Night Watch” has been painstakingly returned to the main building of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum before its re-opening next month after a decade of renovations.

Removing the priceless painting from a temporary wing and moving it to the main building Wednesday was an operation of almost military precision.

Dozens of police stood guard as it was slid into a climate-controlled crate and cranes were used to lift it out of one gallery and into another.

The 1642 oil painting of one of Amsterdam’s citizen militias, officially titled “The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch,” measures 3.79 metres by 4.53 metres (12.43 x 14.86 feet) and weighs 337 kilograms (743 pounds).

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