Hieronymus Bosch draws record number of visitors to Brabant museum

More than 400,000 people visited the exhibition of Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings at the Noordbrabants Museum during its three-month run.

The figure of 421,700 is a record for the museum in Bosch’s home town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch and generated an estimated €6.6 million in income, according to the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC).

The museum released the final figures after the exhibition closed on Sunday evening.

The exhibition, held to mark the 500^th anniversary of the artist’s death, brought together 17 of Bosch’s surviving 24 paintings and 19 out of 20 drawings, the largest ever collection of his works in one place. Visitors gave the display an average score of 8 out of 10 in a survey by TNS NIPO.

International visitors bought 23% of all tickets and the museum fielded requests from 81 countries. The largest share of cross-border visitors came from neighbouring Belgium (7%), followed by Germany (6%) and the UK (4%).

Museum Curator Charles de Mooij said: ‘At the Noordbrabants Museum we are very proud that we achieved such tremendous visitor figures and that we were able to contribute to associating Den Bosch definitively and internationally with its greatest son.’