What the gallery will do about the Vermeer exhibition after Jan. 3 depends on the outcome of the budget talks.

For information, call (202) 842-6713 for the Homer show, (202) 842-6684 for the Vermeer exhibition.

The Vermeer exhibition and catalog, for example, were underwritten by MasterCard International, Heineken and a long list of private supporters.

At the gallery's 1995-96 Vermeer exhibition, however, stronger measures were sometimes needed.

The Washington show, the benchmark against which other Vermeer exhibitions are still measured, attracted 327,551 visitors.

Many people doing so could have kept the lights on at the Vermeer exhibition.

If the Joneses say they would rather see a Norman Rockwell retrospective than a Vermeer exhibition, what then?

Of course, Vermeer exhibitions have been museum blockbusters long before the first word of "Girl With a Pearl Earring" was set to paper.

Or the weekend when a blizzard struck Washington, thinning the crowds at the Vermeer exhibition just enough to allow those of us who were there to see the paintings up close.

The hottest ticket in Washington last winter was for the Vermeer exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, which ran from November through February.