The museum’s true mission under a golden roof
The Louvre’s new Islamic art collection
MúzeumCafé 34.
Objects of Islamic art from the Middle East have amazed the western world for centuries. It is no wonder that from the 12th century masterpieces made in the Middle East or Egypt could be found in the treasuries of the monarchs, Church dignitaries, orders of knighthood and monastic orders of one of the oldest and mightiest empires of Europe, the Kingdom of France. As a consequence of the French Revolution, these objects became the carefully kept treasures of the Louvre. Yet it was only in 2003 when Henri Loyrette, the Louvre’s director who is retiring this April, organised them in a single collection. After being ‘out of sight’ for about 200 years, the Islamic Art Collection is stylishly accommodated in a new exhibition area on two levels constructed by covering the Visconti courtyard. Underneath the brownish gold roof compared to a flying carpet, the wings of a dragon-fly or sand dunes, masterpieces – woven into carpets, fired into ceramics, laid in mosaics, carved in wood and stone, or set in jewellery – present the long history of a culturally and ethnically colourful region from medieval Spanish territories to India, from Egypt to Iran. You catch sight of the glass roof covered with an undulating metal veil shrouding one of the Louvre’s inner courtyards when you look out of the window after leaving behind the hall with the milling crowd in front of the Mona Lisa and head for the Grande Galerie. The two-level exhibition area on 2,800 square metres was designed by architects Rudy Ricciotti and Mario Bellini, and accommodates the masterpieces of Islamic art. The entire collection comprises the creations of the period between the 7th and 19th centuries. The public can admire 3,000 of the collection’s nearly 19,000 objects of art, which now include 3,500 works deposited by the Museum of Applied Arts.