A short train ride away from Florence lies an incredible and final opportunity to see the famous painting “Girl with a Pearl Earring” outside its home in the Netherlands. Typically seeing such a national treasure outside of its home would be impossible; museums that host massively important paintings loathe to part with them. The traveling exhibition featuring “Girl with a Pearl Earring” is about as likely as a traveling painting featuring the Mona Lisa, or a detached fresco from the Sistine Chapel.

Renovations to the Mauritshuis, located in the Hague, Netherlands, involved the entire closure of the museum. Instead of moving the paintings to storage for the duration, the museum chose to send a traveling exhibition to several major cities. It has previously visited Tokyo and Kobe in Japan in 2012 and three cities in the US in 2013 and Bologna is the last stop for the exhibition before the paintings return to the Netherlands to be rehung in the newly remodeled Mauritshuis before its reopening this summer.

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” is the most recognizable name in the exhibition, painted by the master of light, Vermeer, and even inspired a novel of the same name. In addition to another Vermeer painting, a number of other Dutch masters accompany the painting, including Rembrandt, Hals, Steen and Ter Borch. The Mauritshuis celebrates the golden age of 17th-century Dutch painting and will reopen in June with expanded facilities. The design plan connects the original building with one across the street which will house a new exhibition space, an education area, a café and the museum shop, as well as the library, an auditorium and the museum offices. The museum’s goal is to make the art collection as well as Dutch culture more accessible to visitors and the general public.

Painting connoisseurs cannot miss this unique opportunity to see one of the most famous paintings in the world without traveling to the Netherlands. Travel to Bologna from February 8- May 25 to see the famous Dutch masters before they return home.