Minster of Education and Culture István Hiller and museum director László Baán greeted Deák with a bouquet of tulips and a pair a pair of tickets for a weekend trip to Amsterdam, home of the Van Gogh Museum.
The museum has now beat its previous record for attracting the most visitors to an exhibition, previously held by the exhibition Monet and Friends, which drew 250,000 visitors between December 2003 and March 2004. And more visitors are to come: some 80,000 tickets have been pre-purchased, Baán noted.
Van Gogh in Budapest will remain open until March 20. To accommodate the number of visitors who wish to see the exhibition, the Fine Arts Museum is staying open on Mondays, when it is normally closed; and, from the first weekend in March, it will extend its opening times from 9am until 8pm every day.
The record number of visitors to a single exhibition in Hungary was recorded at a show of paintings by Mihály Munkácsy, Hungary's most famous artist, at the Hungarian National Gallery. The exhibition attracted 360,000 visitors during five months in 2005.
Van Gogh in Budapest features 43 paintings, 24 drawings and 10 graphics works. In addition, important works by painters who influenced Van Gogh, such as Rembrandt, Delacroix, Daubigny and Millet are shown. In another section of the exhibition, works by Hungarian artists influenced by Van Gogh are on display.
