The Islamic Arts Gallery at the Louvre opened to the public on Saturday, bringing what is believed to be the most extensive Islamic arts collection in the world to Paris.
The two-floor area of the gallery contains around 15,000 original pieces from museum’s own collection and 3,400 artefacts on permanent loan from the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. Some of the recent additions were provided exclusively by Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal and Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman.
The exhibit is displayed chronologically, starting 100 years after the death of Prophet Mohammed until the mid-19th century. A map detailing the creation and development of every Muslim empire is provided, including the Islamic artefacts from Spain, China, and India.
Since the founding of the Museum Central des Arts, the name given to the Louvre by the French revolutionary government at its opening in 1793, several Islamic objects originating in royal collections have formed the nucleus of the collection managed today by the museum’s Department of Islamic Art. It was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s that the pace of acquisitions increased considerably, at the urging of both knowledgeable art lovers and historians.
Today, the collections of the Department of Islamic Arts continue to be enriched through important purchases, gifts and bequests.
