Noordbrabants Museum — Attraction in 's-Hertogenbosch

First of all let me say: the exhibition was marvellous. Where else do you get the chance to see such a number of masterpieces in one exhibition? Besides the fact that Bosch's oeuvre is tremendously modern and has a lot to say to us in 21st century. Therefore a big applause for the exhibitors.

On the other hand the exhibition was overcrowded, not in every area, but in general. Also the illumination was sometimes insufficient especially in the part Bosch as draftsman. The biggest complaint has to do with the "Cure of the folly" (De keisnijding). The painting was described in the catalogue as made by Bosch himself, lend by the Prado museum in Madrid. But the painting we see under this name in the exhibition is not by Bosch but by his followers and is lend by the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (correctly described in the exhibition itself). Even if the scenery is almost identical, the differences of the paintings are obvious (the nun with the book on her head is not seen in the exhibition). And nobody of the museum's staff could give me any information about this mistake (or should I say cheating?).

But apart from the depicted points I was very satisfied with the exhibition. Thanks a lot to all the...

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am responding to your request for an opinion about the Hieronymus Bosch exhibition.

On the positive side: The exhibition was very well organised in terms of logistics. You managed to assemble an amazingly large number of the existing originals and viewing them together was a memorable aesthetic experience

The negatives: Obviously the number of tickets sold was well over and above the capacity of the space so that extreme overcrowding made the proper viewing, let alone enjoyment, very difficult. As noted in the Exhibition Book, these are pictures which have to be "read" and that was not possible, given the circumstances. I believe common sense and respect for the visitors should have prevailed over the attempt to maximize revenue.

The walk from the recommended St-Jan car park was indeed a short one, but was not signposted, which should have been done for a major event like this. On Ascension Day the town was full of tourists and no one could give us proper directions, so having driven from Brussels early enough we almost missed our slot.

Faithfully yours,

Lily...

I took the precaution of booking two different time slots and am glad I did. Not only was there a lot to take in but the stamina required for getting around the exhibition was significant, as other reviewers have said. I got the impression of a small regional museum being overwhelmed by numbers as this was reflected in a) not having enough staff (e.g. in compulsory coat check, within the exhibition etc), b) not following blockbuster best practice in leaving plenty of space for crowd movement and c) running out of 'foreign language' catalogues. It took 40 minutes of not very well tempered queuing to retrieve my coat after which my predominant emotion was relief rather than the glow of seeing all those wonderful pictures (which would otherwise be a five star experience). The audio guide was a serious disappointment; there was little 'extra' content, for people to find out more if they wished, very little about the history of a painting etc just a rather dumbed down explanation of the story depicted. And John of Patmos was NOT the evangelist. Would have welcomed more...