Botticelli to Van Gogh exhibition tickets sell out early at National Gallery of Australia

While final attendance numbers will be announced in the coming weeks, National Gallery of Australia director Nick Mitzevich said Botticelli to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the National Gallery, London is the institution's largest and most attended exhibition in the past decade.

The remainder of the gallery's sessions for the exhibition - which finishes up on Monday - sold out on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the institution said despite knowing the exhibition would be big, they did not expect it to be a sellout, particularly considering the uncertainty Covid placed on visitor numbers.

"There were variables that we just were unsure about heading into this exhibition," Mr Mitzevich said.

"We were unsure about how confident people would be to travel and we were unsure about borders.

"We've also had to work within the lighting level cap, which to be very basic, that means there's only a certain number of hours a week where the works can be lit. These requirements are about protecting works of art, some of which are more than 500 years old.

"But we're really heartened by the response. Pre- and post-Covid are very difficult to compare because there were restrictions but it will easily be the largest and the most attended exhibition that we've had in the last decade."

READ MORE: Inside Botticelli to Van Gogh: the National Gallery of Australia big blockbuster

The popularity of Botticelli to Van Gogh saw the gallery put on an extra 64 additional sessions in the exhibition's final weeks.

Botticelli to Van Gogh not only marked the gallery's first blockbuster since the pandemic but also the first time in the almost 200-year history of the National Gallery, London, that an exhibition has toured internationally.

Spanning 400 years, the exhibition includes 61 paintings by some of Europe's most revered artists, names like Botticelli, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet and van Gogh. While the number of notable works in the exhibition - including Rembrandt's Self Portrait at the Age of 34 and Vermeer's A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal - has seen the show be described as a crash course in art history, it was van Gogh's much-loved Sunflowers that captured the imagination of the public.

Mr Mitzevich said it's drawcards such as these works that have made the exhibition so popular.

"It speaks to the quality of the works of the National Gallery, London has lent us. And also the rarity of these works ever coming back," he said.

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