Obscenely detailed scan lets you peer at Rembrandts Night Watch masterpiece online

The Rijksmuseum has released what it claims is the “largest and most detailed photograph of any artwork,” and it’s viewable for free on its website. The scan is of Rembrandt van Rijn’s 1642 masterpiece The Night Watch, a roughly 12 by 14 foot painting which is currently the focus of a massive research and restoration project called “Operation Night Watch.”

The technical details of the scan are staggering. In a press release, the Rijksmuseum explains that it’s made up of 8,439 individual photographs taken with a 100 megapixel Hasselblad H6D 400 MS camera. Neural networks were reportedly used to check each image for color and sharpness, and an AI system helped stitch these photos together into a single image.

The result is a 717 gigapixel...

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