Exhibition Vermeer almost sold out, possibly more tickets available

New tickets may be available for the Vermeer exhibition that opened Friday at the Rijksmuseum and is already almost completely sold out, said Rijksmuseum director Taco Dibbits on the television program Buitenhof on Sunday. "The love for Vermeer is great worldwide," he said.

According to Dibbits, there has been a huge rush for tickets in recent days. "It's going tremendously fast," the Rijksmuseum director said. Within three days, tickets were almost sold out, he said. "We're going to do everything we can now to accommodate even more people."

The response has been great, claimed Dibbits, who said on Saturday that he had spoken to people who had come to the Netherlands from Australia especially for the exhibition. The director compared the rush for tickets to the rush for tickets to pop concerts. "The very first night, so many people tried to get on the website, of course we expected that, but there were still more than we could handle, and then the website was down."

In total, about 450,000 tickets were available, the director said. "We're going to see now if we can open more nights, if we can let a little more people in," Dibbits stated. "But of course, it's also a balancing act, because you want the people who come to see the paintings properly."

When asked if there will be an announcement soon that the number of evenings the exhibit is on view will be expanded, Dibbits replied, "Always keep an eye on the website."

The Vermeer exhibition, which can be seen until June 4, opened in the museum on Friday. Never before have so many works by the 17th-century master been on display: 28 of the approximately 37 paintings have come from around the world. There are also seven works on display that have never been shown in the Netherlands before.