Three leading Dutch museum bosses are among five people being considered for the job of director of London’s National Gallery, the Independent says on Tuesday.

The paper lists Axel Rüger, Taco Dibbits and Emilie Gordenker as potential candidates. Rüger has been director of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam since 2006. He joined the museum from the National where he was a curator of Dutch painting. Dibbits is director of collections at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, hailed for a successful reopening recently.

Gordenker is director of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, another museum hailed for a successful reopening recently and with a collection that includes Vermeer’s The Girl with the Pearl Earring and Fabritius’ The Goldfinch. However, Gordenker told NRC on Tuesday that she is not in the running.

The other two on the shortlist are Luke Syson of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Gabriele Finaldi of the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid.

Neither the National Gallery nor the reported candidates would comment on the Independent’s report. The museum hopes to appoint a new director before Christmas.