This album of the Louvre Abu Dhabi collection of works allows readers to fully enjoy what the museum offers its visitors: an encounter with the universal across epochs, cultures and civilisations. The discovery - or rediscovery - of the works exhibited in the Louvre Abu Dhabi is a unique experience: on one hand because they are seen in a new light, that of Abu Dhabi filtered through the dome designed by Jean Nouvel, and on the other because their dialogue with works with which they are not usually presented increases their polysemy.

This album provides a key to understanding the characteristics common to all humanity and the elements that constitute and form our distinct identity filtered through the prism of time, culture and history.

The collection of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is universal in its scope: from prehistory to the latest contemporary commissions. Artists Giuseppe Penone and Jenny Holzer have created new works in direct response to the museum’s unique architecture and spirit. The very first purchase was made in 2009: a seminal painting by abstract pioneer Piet Mondrian. Since then, the collection has expanded to over 600 pieces. The diversity of masterpieces is astonishing.

Highlights include an incredibly rare Bactrian princess from the 3rd millennium BCE; a 3000-year-old Middle-Eastern gold bracelet; and a magnificent monumental bronze lion from Andalusia from the 11-12th century.

Alongside these are works by some of the great European masters of the 19th and 20th centuries: Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee and Rene Magritte. A series of nine canvases by Cy Twombly produced in Italy just three years before the artist’s death in 2011 is also on show. Together, such works, and many more, represent the human desire for artistic expression in its entirety.