Spending time alone with a great masterpiece – with the opportunity to more deeply contemplate and appreciate it – is an experience more usually reserved for the super-rich and celebrities who have ‘fixers’ to make their dreams come true.

Inspired by this concept and with a view to putting a positive spin on pandemic restrictions, art museum The Mauritshuis in The Hague, created an egalitarian version of the private viewing, making one of its star paintings – Vermeer’s View of Delft – available for one-to-one bookings as part of a special event called Alone with Vermeer.

Dubbed ‘the most beautiful painting in the world’ by author Marcel Proust, the painting was put on display for visitors in bookable 10-minute slots for sole viewings or viewings in small groups. The price of the ticket also included a full visit to the rest of the collection.

The Mauritshuis, based in a 17th-century mansion, is home to some of the most important paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, such as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, which are on permanent display.

Alone with Vermeer has been hailed as a bold and imaginative answer to the challenges of the pandemic.