Louvre Abu Dhabi hits million visits, most famous exhibit yet to come

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It’s been a year since the opening of Abu Dhabi’s sprawling counterpart to the famed Louvre museum in Paris. Over a million people have now visited the capital’s new landmark, and it hasn’t even got it’s most anticipated exhibit yet.

Spread over more than 6,000 square metres, the Louvre Abu Dhabi was opened in November 2017 in the United Arab Emirates, allowing visitors to famous works such as Ai Weiwei’s “Fountain of Light” and Vincent van Gogh’s “Self-portrait.”

A year later, more than a million visitors have walked the museum’s many halls. Museum director Manuel Rabate said on Twitter that the number of guests, 60 per cent of whom have come from abroad, exceeded their goals, local media reported.

And yet the museum’s most anticipated exhibit has still not been hung on its walls. Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi”, which was sold for more than 450 million US dollars to Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, is still set to be unveiled.

Speculations are rife as to why the painting has not been added, and the museum has yet to give an official update on the painting, which had been set to be unveiled at its first anniversary.

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Alongside its permanent exhibition, which includes a statue of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II weighing several tons, the museum has been running several temporary shows.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi, the first universal museum in the Arab world, aims to emphasise commonalities between cultures and present humankind as a product of many influences. Central to this idea is the staging of Arabic art as part of the worldwide cultural landscape.

Its cosmopolitan approach aims to depict the Arab country as one that – despite its authoritarian rule – favours tolerance and is thus opposed to radical ideas.

In what is an especially rare sight in the Arab world, a Torah is can be found next to the Quran and the Bible.

While the exhibition space runs larger than most football fields, it is only a fraction of the size of the Louvre in Paris, which is still more than eight times larger.

Among the works on show are 300 exhibits on loan, each year, from various Paris museums. Besides the Louvre, these include the Musee d’Orsay, Musee Rodin and Centre Pompidou. As a result, the work of Leonardo da Vinci can still already be seen in the desert. – dpa