A Visit to the United Arab Emirates - Louvre Abu Dhabi
If you’re ever in Abu Dhabi, I encourage you to visit the Louvre Abu Dhabi - a most beautiful and interesting art and civilization museum.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi was inaugurated last month as part of a 30-year agreement between the city of Abu Dhabi and the French government. The new museum is an architectural masterpiece by designer, Jean Nouvel, and includes a growing collection of ancient archaeological finds, paintings, and both historical and contemporary installations. Hundreds of pieces represent ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, ancient Chinese dynasties, the Renaissance, the Impressionists and the Modernists. My grandchildren, Jude and Truman, loved the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and were interested to see every piece of work. In fact, we saw many, many visitors enjoying their visit to this marvelous museum.
We had a wonderful stay in the United Arab Emirates - it's truly a vacation destination for adults and children alike. There is so much history, culture and modern development in the UAE - if you haven't been there, I hope these last three blogs inspire you to add it to your list of places to visit. Enjoy these photos.
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- Here I am at the newly inaugurated Louvre Abu Dhabi.
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- The museum is approximately 260,000 square feet with more than 85-thousand square feet of galleries, making it the largest art museum in the Arabian peninsula.
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- The architect for the building is Jean Nouvel who also designed the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. Nouvel’s dome is inspired by the shade and open lattice of the mashrabiya, a protective Arabic screen.
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- The web-patterned ceiling allows the sun to filter through the space. The dome weighs about 7500 tons, 200-tons more than the Eiffel Tower.
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- The art work is spread through 23-galleries, and the inaugural display includes about 600 objects – 300 from French museums, two dozen from Middle Eastern collections and about 230 from the Louvre Abu Dhabi itself. It is an amazing collection of works.
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- This is the image of a queen or goddess made out of black stone from Egypt in 360 BCE.
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- Here is a marble basin inscribed with the name of Bonifilius from Northern Italy in 1300. Water basins served as symbols of purification and artistic expression.
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- This is the Statue of Gudea, prince of Lagash, praying, circa 2120 BC. It is made from diorite, an igneous rock composed of minerals.
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- This is one piece of a funerary display showing Jewish, Muslim and Christian stones. It is meant to present the history of the world and its major religions.
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- Here is the sarcophagus of Henuttawy – painted wood, stuccoed and painted cloth from the Egyptian civilization in 950-900 BCE. This area displays interpretations of royalty and divinity of early times.
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- Here is an Abyssinian Chieftain made from marble, bronze and lapis lazuli from about the year 1870.
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- Visitors admired this giant engraved stone Cuneiform wall with excerpts from Creation Myth tablets – it is from the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin.
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- This is called “Walking Man, on a Column,” by Auguste Rodin, cast in 2006 by Fonderie de Coubertin.
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- Here is a page from the “Blue Qur’an” made of gold on dyed parchment, about the year 900 in North Africa.
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- Many also admired this “Mari-Cha” lion made of bronze from southern Spain or southern Italy around 1000–1200. This lion is one of the most important works of art from the Mediterranean region. The tube in its mouth and the holes on the body show that the object once made noise.
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- Another well-loved piece at the museum is “La Belle Ferronnière,” by Leonardo da Vinci.
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- Here is Giovanni Bellini’s “Madonna and Child” from Venice, Italy between 1480 and 1485. It’s an oil on panel work.
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- This is the “Fountain of Light” by artist Ai Weiwei.
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- Did you see this on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48? I loved this installation showing the beauty in the charred bottoms of large pots and pans. It is called “Food for Thought — Al Muallaqat,” by Maha Malluh, an artist working in Saudi Arabia. Blackened by use, these stew pots show the marks of the past and the amazing stories told during mealtimes.
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- Here is a camel figure showing its two humps. It is called a Bactrian camel – a large, even-toed ungulate native to the steppes of Central Asia. During our safari in Dubai, we rode Dromedary camels with one hump.
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- This is part of a six-fold screen made with ink, and gold leaf on paper – I loved all the details.
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- This shows hilye, a type of calligraphy that describes the attributes of the Prophet. It includes ink, various colors and gold on paper laid on cardboard – Kazasker Mustafa Izzet, turkey, Istanbul, 1894-1895.
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- This painting is titled ‘The Fifer’ by Edouard Manet, 1866.
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- A team of water engineers designed this watertight basement and group of tidal pools within the galleries to give the illusion of a “museum in the sea”.
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- Truman loved looking into the tidal pools.
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- The views outside the museum, and all around Abu Dhabi were so beautiful.
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- Here I am by the pools – inside and out, these buildings display the great talents of architect Jean Nouvel – it was a wonderful visit to the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
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