The Louvre Abu Dhabi has recently opened the display of its permanent collection in their Birth of a Museum exhibition.

It took place at Manarat Al-Saadiyat, Saadiyat Cultural District’s art and exhibition center on Saadiyat Island on April 22. The exhibition will run until July 20, featuring almost 130 art works, some of which have never been showed to the public before.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum is scheduled to open in 2015 and will be the first universal museum in the Arab World. The Birth of a Museum exhibition is showcasing a selection of the museum’s collection acquired to date. It gives visitors an insight into the museum’s narrative and collection ahead of its opening. The artworks at the exhibition include ancient artifacts from all over the world — including Egypt, Turkey, Greece and Mali — showcasing the range of great civilizations and illustrating relations starting from shared human experience exceeding geography, nationality, religion and history.

“With this exhibit, we hope to involve the public and to keep them interested and updated with the process of the development. We are very proud of this cultural exchange between Paris’ Louvre and Abu Dhabi,” said Hessa Al-Dhaheri, project manager of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. “All works and artists have been carefully chosen to represent an original analysis of the history of art.”

Commenting on the latest milestone for the Saadiyat Cultural District, Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al-Nahyan, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi) said, “The aim of this exhibition is to evoke the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s ambiance and aesthetics, and to begin to tell the story of the birth of this museum. The whole exhibition experience is another chance for visitors from the United Arab Emirates and abroad, to see the remarkable art works in the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s permanent collection as we prepare for the museum’s opening. Even before opening its doors, Louvre Abu Dhabi is setting its precedent as a place of cross-cultural dialogue and exchange.”

The government of Abu Dhabi owns the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Its collection features key historical artifacts, such as a Middle-Eastern gold bracelet with a lion’s head that is approximately 3,000 years old, a tile of arabesque patterns from the Ottoman Empire and Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey’s Ayoucha from 1843 Cairo.

There’s also the oldest known photograph of a veiled woman, a painting titled “The Good Samaritan” by Jacob Jordaens, one of the major Flemish painter from the 17th century.

A silk painting from Japan’s late seventeenth century is on display, as well as a copy of the Holy Qur’an, which was said to be from Syria’s late 13th century.

In the collection are paintings by artists like Oman Hemdy Bey, Paul Gauguin, Rene Magritte, Alexander Calder, Paul Klee, Yves Klein, Cy Twombly, Giovanni Bellini and Edouard Manet.

Laurence des Cars, curatorial director of Agence France — Muséums, said the goal of the new collection is similar to the globe-spanning collections of the great museums of the late 18th century in Europe: to seek cultural connections as well as rifts and misperceptions.

The future museum will not look anything like the lavish 17th century building in Paris where Louis XIV once lived. With a built up area of 64,000 square meters, the Louvre Abu Dhabi is conceived as a complex of pavilions, plazas, alleyways and canals evoking the image of a city floating on the sea. Hovering over the complex will be a form inspired by traditional Arabic architecture: a vast, 180 meters in diameter dome, perforated with interlaced patterns so that a magical, diffused light will filter through. “The geometric lace dome will feature an enchanting rain of light which was inspired by the trees of Abu Dhabi and how it sheds light under its shadow,” said Dhaheri. “The Louvre Abu Dhabi is developing its own permanent collection, which will be enriched by loans from 12 French museums, including Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée du Quai Branly and Center Pompidou,” she added.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi is designed by Pritzker-prize winning French architect Jean Nouvel. It will offer 9,200 square. meters of art galleries. The 6,000-square. meter Permanent Gallery will house the museum’s permanent collection taking the visitor through a universal journey from the most ancient to contemporary through art works from different civilizations. The Temporary Gallery will be a dedicated space of 2,000 sq. meters presenting temporary exhibitions of international standards.

Henri Loyrette, president-director of the Louvre Museum in Paris, said: “This exhibition is a major milestone in the realization of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. It unveils the high quality of the art works that will reflect the heart of the future museum’s permanent collection. Moreover, this exhibition will embody remarkably the essence of the forthcoming birth of this universal museum. The exhibition will travel from Abu Dhabi to Paris to be presented at the Louvre in Paris in October this year.”

Another ongoing cultural program of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is the Talking Art Series, running monthly until June 26. This rich program of public events explores the significance of individual artworks both in art historical terms and in the context of the museum’s growing collection.

Aside from the Louvre, Abu Dhabi also has future plans to open The National Museum in 2016, and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi in 2017, which are also designed by world-renowned Pritzker-prize winning architects.

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