New research suggests that the barking dog in the lower right corner of Rembrandt's *The Night Watch* (1642) was copied from a title-page illustration by the Dutch artist Adriaen van de Venne. Anne Lenders, curator of 17th-century Dutch paintings at the Rijksmuseum, recognized the resemblance while visiting an exhibition on Van de Venne at the Zeeuws Museum. Macro X-ray fluorescence scans of the painting's underdrawing confirmed the similarity, though Rembrandt modified the dog's posture and added a tongue to make it appear alert and barking at a drum.
The finding matters because it reveals how Rembrandt, who collected Van de Venne's prints, used existing imagery as part of his artistic training and as a display of erudition, much like the Italian Old Masters. The discovery also deepens understanding of Rembrandt's creative process and his deliberate transformation of borrowed motifs to enhance the liveliness and narrative tension of his most famous painting.