A Final Wish: Terminally Ill Patients Visit Rembrandt’s Paintings in the Rijksmuseum One Last Time

On Mon­day, the Dutch vol­un­teer orga­ni­za­tion called Sticht­ing Ambu­lance Wens Ned­er­land (rough­ly trans­lat­ed as Ambu­lance Wish Foun­da­tion Nether­lands) took three ter­mi­nal­ly ill patients to see The Late Rem­brandt Exhi­bi­tion cur­rent­ly being held at the Rijksmu­se­um in Ams­ter­dam. The exhib­it fea­tures over 100 paint­ings, draw­ings and prints that Rem­brandt pro­duced dur­ing the final phase of his life. And the patients, near­ing the end of their lives, want­ed to see the exhib­it and expe­ri­ence the artistry of the great Dutch painter one last time.

Staffed by 200 med­ical­ly-trained vol­un­teers, the orga­ni­za­tion has ful­filled thou­sands of wish­es since its cre­ation in 2007, and they did­n’t dis­ap­point this time. As visu­al­ly doc­u­ment­ed on its Twit­ter account, the non­prof­it took the guests to the exhib­it, each in an ambu­lance. The muse­um-goers were then treat­ed to a one-hour pri­vate tour of the col­lec­tion. Some poignant pic­tures cap­ture the bit­ter­sweet moment.

via Laugh­ing Squid

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Rijksmu­se­um Puts 125,000 Dutch Mas­ter­pieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art

Rembrandt’s Face­book Time­line

16th-Cen­tu­ry Ams­ter­dam Stun­ning­ly Visu­al­ized with 3D Ani­ma­tion