h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Your entry seems to forget the most startling aspect of the painting's history; the secondary title. In recent times, the painting was called "The Night Watch" because of the dark setting and eery glow of some of the figures. After the painting was cleaned in 1946, it was determined that the figures were actually parading in the middle of the day! Several centuries of candle soot had severly blackened the painting. The uniform of the Captain is actually lemon yellow, balanced by the girl's yellow/white dress.

See some details here:
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/rembrand/p-rembra19.htm
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/rembrand/p-rembra26.htm

Also, the reason that the painting would not fit in the house was that it measures 11'x14'.

I cannot find the person with the burning glass!
According to a German site on the internet one of the figures in the painting is holding a burning glass to light a fire for one of the riflemen and this should prove the Night Watch shows a scene in daytime with full sunlight.
That might indeed be so since in Rembrandt days the city of Amsterdam hired people to take over the watch at night, because the merchants of linen were stressed for time. These people were no members of the civil guards of Frans Banning Cocq because they lacked the financial means to join.
Some say Rembrandt painted the members of the civil guards preparing for one of the parades a few years earlier during the big event of the visit of Catharina de Medici to the city of Amsterdam.
Others claim he painted the opening scene of the play Gijsbrecht van Amstel by Vondel that was performed on the opening night of the newly built theatre in Amsterdam.
The night-like gloom of the painting deepened over the centuries with the glue used to replace the linen on the back of the painting.