Supporters of climate change campaign group Extinction Rebellion reserved thousands of tickets to visit Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum on Saturday but failed to turn up, leaving just a few hundred visitors for much of the day instead.

The protest, described as a “visitors’ strike” by the campaign group, was part of an ongoing campaign to get ING, the museum’s main sponsor, to stop backing fossil fuel companies.

“Everything that was available has been reserved, and only a few hundred people who had booked earlier actually showed up,” a spokesman for the museum told broadcaster NOS.

The museum usually has some 8,000 visitors on a busy Saturday.

ING said in a statement that it shared XR’s aim to combat climate change. “But we differ about the best way to achieve this,” the bank said. “This is why we consider XR’s demands to be unrealistic.”

Saturday’s action is not the first time the museum has been targetted because of its ties to the country’s biggest bank.

In November, the museum was forced to close during the Dutch capital’s museum night, because of a threat by XR campaigners.

In September, XR activists staged a protest outside the museum by chaining themselves across the gates at the pedestrian and cycle entrances to the museum underpass, where the main way into the museum is located.

The campaign group wants the museum, home of Rembrandt’s Night Watch and numerous other masterpieces, to break its ties with sponsor ING, accusing the financial services group of “artwashing”.