“Prince Walid Helps Set Up Islamic Art Wing in Louvre” from IslamOnline, with thanks to Fjordman.
PARIS , July 27, 2005 — Saudi billionaire Prince Al-Walid Bin Talal has donated a multi-million-euro gift to finance the construction of a new Islamic art wing in the Paris-based Louvre Museum to show off the bright face of the Muslim world.
The 4,000-square-meter wing in the world’s largest museum will showcase up to 10,000 pieces, one of the greatest concentrations of Islamic art in existence, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported Wednesday, July 27.
Financed by 17 million euros from the Saudi business tycoon, the Islamic art wing is designed by architects Mario Bellinin from Italy and Rudi Ricciotti from France . It is scheduled to open in 2009.
Only some 1,300 objects from the Louvre’s Islamic collection are currently on display.
The new rooms will have 36,000 square feet of display space, about four times the current area.
The donation is one of the biggest cultural gifts in France ‘s history.
“Your gesture is a testament to the generosity of the Islamic world,” the French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres told Prince Walid in a ceremony on Tuesday, July 26…