Louvre Abu Dhabi Adds Regional Treasures to a Cartier Show

Jewelry and crafts from the Muslim world tell the story of one European jewelry house’s fascination with Middle Eastern culture and design in “Cartier: Islamic Inspiration and Modern Design,” on display at the Louvre Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

The exhibition, through March 24, is a reimagined version of “Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity,” shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2021 and the Dallas Museum of Art in Texas in 2022, which drew heavily from Cartier’s private collection.

The Abu Dhabi exhibition of more than 400 items still includes hundreds of pieces from the Cartier collection, but now also features dozens of items from throughout the Muslim world.

“We have seized the opportunity to explore regional collections,” Fakhera Ahmed Mubarak Alkindi, senior curatorial assistant at the Louvre Abu Dhabi, wrote in an email, “from our own collection to, for example, the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization in the U.A.E., the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and Al Shindagha Museum in Dubai.”

She noted that the additions include several pieces of Cartier jewelry and artwork from private collections in the region, including the al-Sabah collection from Kuwait and the al-Thani royal collection from Qatar — and that some are on public display for the first time.