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DUBAI: The newly-opened Louvre Abu Dhabi on Tuesday welcomed the president of Nepal, who is currently on an official visit to the UAE, to tour the museum with her delegation.
President Bidhya Devi Bhandari was welcomed by Saif Ghobash, director General of the Department of Culture & Tourism in Abu Dhabi and Manuel Rabaté, director of Louvre Abu Dhabi who led her on a tour of the museum’s highlights.
The group paid particular attention to a statue of Maitreya, a Buddha from the Malla dynasty in Nepal dating back to 1100–1200, a statue of Gudea, prince of Lagash from Musée du Louvre, the Winged dragon, a statue of Dancing Shiva and Fountain of Light by renowned Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei.
Visitors to the museum, which opened on Nov. 11, can walk through promenades overlooking the sea underneath the impressive 180-meter dome, comprised of 7,850 unique metal stars set in a complex geometric pattern. Sunlight filters through the meshwork — which, at 7,500 tons, weighs almost as much as the Eiffel Tower — to create speckled shadows on the museum floor, worthy of an exhibit in and of itself.
The space boasts 6,000 square meters of galleries, exhibitions, a Children’s Museum for visitors aged six to 12, a research center, a restaurant, a boutique and a café, making it perfect for a family day out.
Highlights currently on show include a prehistoric stone tool dating back to 350,000 BCE, a milestone indicating the distance from Makkah in Kufic inscriptions, and a funerary stele from Makkah dating back to 700–900 CE from the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage.