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Forget Renaissance Europe. The world’s first oil paintings go back nearly 14 centuries to murals in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan caves, a Japanese researcher says.

Buddhist images painted in the central Afghan region, dated to around 650 AD, are the earliest examples of oil used in art history, says Yoko Taniguchi, an expert at Japan’s National Research Institute for Cultural Properties.

A group of Japanese, European and US scientists are collaborating to restore damaged murals in caves in the Bamiyan Valley, famous for its two gigantic statues of the Buddha which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

In the murals, thousands of Buddhas in vermilion robes sit cross-legged, sporting exquisitely knotted hair.

A recent handout picture, released from the Japanese National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, shows an oil painting of a Buddhist image, discovered in a cave in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan. (AFP: Japanese National Research Institute for Cultural Properties

Other motifs show crouching monkeys, men facing one another or palm leaves delicately intertwined with mythical creatures.

The paintings incorporate a mix of Indian and Chinese influences, and are most likely to be the works of artists travelling on the Silk Road, which was the largest trade and cultural route connecting the East and the West.

The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute analysed 53 samples extracted from the murals. Using gas chromatography methods, the researchers found that 19 had oil in the paint.

“Different types of oil were used on the dirt walls with such a sophisticated technique that I felt I was looking right at a medieval board painting dating from 14th or 15th century Italy,” Ms Taniguchi said.

The discovery would reverse common perceptions about the origins of oil paintings.

The technique is widely believed to have emerged in Europe leading into the Renaissance, which flowered from 1400 to 1600.

Italian artist and architect Giorgio Vasari first wrote of oil painting in his book, The Lives of the Artists, in the mid-16th century.

Art historians, however, argue that 15th-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck may have known of the technique because he had developed a stable varnish, although he kept it secret until his death.

“It was very impressive to discover that such advanced methods were used in murals in central Asia,” Ms Taniguchi said.

“My European colleagues were shocked because they always believed oil paintings were invented in Europe.

“They couldn’t believe such techniques could exist in some Buddhist cave deep in the countryside.”

Painters of the Buddhist murals used organic substances - including natural resin, plant gum, dry oil and animal protein - as a binder, which even today is an important element in paint.

A binder keeps pigment particles together in a cohesive film and allows the paint to resist decay.

The researchers are trying to restore the murals amid international efforts to salvage what is left of Bamiyan.

The Taliban, ignoring global protests, dynamited the two 1,500-year-old statues, the world’s biggest representations of the Buddha, in March 2001, branding them un-Islamic idolatry.

The regime was ousted later that year in a US-led military campaign after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Although oil was used in ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, there currently exist no examples of their use in painting. The oil was used for medicine, cosmetics or to coat boats, Ms Taniguchi said.

Ms Taniguchi hopes the advanced techniques used to analyse the murals would be put to use in ruins of other ancient civilisations.

Other early civilisations including those in current-day Iran, China, Turkey, Pakistan and India may have used similar techniques as well but their ruins have not been subject to advanced, extensive research, she said.

“In analysing old murals throughout Europe and Central Asia, I look forward to throwing light on the roots of oil paintings,” she said.

Damien Hirst, whose London show closed this month without a sale of his diamond skull, has found buyers for £130 million ($265 million) of art at the White Cube galleries, said exhibitions director Tim Marlow. A split shark fetched £10 million, “three crucified sheep sold for 6 million pounds, and talks to sell the skull were ongoing,” Marlow said in a telephone interview yesterday. Frank Dunphy, the artist’s business manager, has valued Hirst’s art in the White Cube shows at £200 million ($410 million) or more.

Damien Hirst : For the Love of God - 2007

The platinum skull, originally belonging to a 18th c. man aged 35, studded with 8,601 diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats, and priced at £50 million ($103 million), costs about 12 times as much as hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen paid to buy Hirst’s shark from collector Charles Saatchi. The discrepancy in price, and the skull’s status as a bejeweled object, may explain why contemporary collectors didn’t rush to buy it, art experts said. The central diamond on the forehead of the skull cost£4.2 million ($9 million) alone.

“A work of art does not owe its importance to the fact that it is made of precious materials,” said Jean-Jacques Aillagon, president of the Chateau de Versailles, and through June 2007, director of Francois Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi in Venice. “In the price, how much corresponds to the work of Damien Hirst, and how much to the materials he used for the work?”

George Michael

The White Cube shows drew collectors from Eli Broad to five museums who purchased Hirst’s works, including at least two from the U.S., according to the gallery.

The singer George Michael paid £3.5 million ($7 million) for “Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain” - a glass tank containing a black calf, its suspended body tied to a post and pierced by dozens of arrows.

The skull represents a price increase for Hirst that exceeds even those of Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, which trebled or quadrupled their auction records in May. Hirst’s record of £9.7 million pounds ($20 million) - the highest for a living artist - was set in June at Sotheby’s, when a telephone bidder bought a pill cabinet, “Lullaby Spring,” that cost the New York seller about £730,000 ($1.5 million) in 2002, auctioneers said.

Joel Mallin, a sculpture collector who sold the pill cabinet in London, said the appreciation was beyond his expectations.

“I only sold this piece because the art market has gotten so outrageous,” Mallin said in a telephone interview. Still, “the price was a surprise.”

The take from the White Cube shows, including bisected animals and paintings of operations, will probably break the record for a dealer sale of an artist’s works, said Marlow. It would also enrich Hirst, 42, whose fortune has been valued at £130 million ($265 million) by the Sunday Times and who may get 75 percent or more of the proceeds of a sale, according to art professionals.

The amount of art sold to date by White Cube was reported earlier by the Sunday Times.

Schwarzenegger

The U.K. artist’s previous show at Gagosian in Beverly Hills, which drew California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the February opening, sold about 30 butterfly pictures at $1 million to $2.5 million, Gagosian said.

“We’re very confident that the skull will sell, but it’s difficult to say exactly when,” said Marlow. He wouldn’t say if the artwork would be discounted, or if potential buyers were well-known contemporary collectors or new buyers, such as the Russians and East Europeans who patronize the auction rooms. Hirst would prefer a buyer who would show the work publicly, he indicated.

“The skull was shown five weeks in London,” Marlow said. “One issue to consider is whether it can have public access.”

Price

Museum buyers of Hirst’s works would issue releases once they agreed with their trustees about the purchases, or had paid the gallery, he said.

Hirst’s skull, titled “For the Love of God,” cost £10 million to make, according to Dunphy. It is known as the 50 million-pound skull.

“You have to get the price right, or it will come back into the market,” said Hirst, wearing jeans and a blue shirt imprinted with a black bat-winged skull, in an interview at London’s White Cube gallery in June. “A lot of people buy things and flip them,” making a quick profit if the work has been underpriced, he said.

A sale of the skull for £50 million would put Hirst on a price level with Pablo Picasso and Gustav Klimt, dead artists who produced some of the 20th century’s most famous works.

Hirst is a boon for dealers and auction houses. About 80 artists and support staff at his studios help turn out new works, often on the themes of death and disease. His art factory system resembles that of Warhol, who died in 1987.

A series of London auctions featuring paintings by Lucian Freud, Claude Monet and Joan Miro netted the biggest-ever sum for a week of art sales in Europe, auctioneers Christie’s said today.

The sales earned a total of £237 million ($561.41 million) and featured 23 new artist records.

Highlights included French Impressionist Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, which sold for £17.9 million ($42.4 million), the third-highest price for the artist at auction and the week’s most expensive painting at Christie’s.

Bruce Bernard by Briton Freud sold for nearly £7.9 million ($18.71 million) - a world record for any work by a living European artist - and Spaniard Miro’s Le Coq (The Cock) fetched £6.6 million ($15.63 million).

Tuesday’s Impressionist and modern art sale was the most lucrative of the week, with sales totalling over £121 million.

Christie’s European president, Jussi Pylkkanen, said the results highlighted “the ever-increasing number of new buyers entering the market”.

“There is great strength and depth in this marketplace and it promises to be another record year for the London art market,” he said.

Christie’s rivals Sotheby’s are also conducting high-budget art sales in London this week.

The auction house sold Monet’s Nympheas, part of his water lilies series, on Wednesday for £18.5 million ($43.82 million), the second-largest price tag ever for the sought-after artist.

Prices for works by contemporary and avant-garde Chinese artists hit record highs at Christie’s spring auctions in Hong Kong on Sunday, in a sign of sustained strong demand. Yue Minjun - known for his paintings of absurd, grinning faces - saw his “Portrait of the artist and his friends” fetch HK$20.48 million ($2.62 million), his highest price at auction.

In a packed Hong Kong auction hall, bursts of spirited bidding - including live online bids - sent works by other top artists to new highs.

Zao Wou-ki’s vivid coloured abstract “14.12.59″ named after the date it was painted, fetched HK$29.44 million ($3.8 million) - almost five times its pre-auction estimate.

A pair of bronze figures by Taiwan-born sculptor Ju Ming, called “Big Sparring”, made HK$14.88 million ($1.9 million) - also a new high for the artist’s work at auction.

“There’s been no letdown, the (Chinese art) market’s still going very strongly,” said Jonathan Stone, a Christie’s international business director for Asian Art.

Chinese art prices have boomed in recent years, fuelled by a robust global economy and nouveau-riche buyers from China drawn to their cultural heritage and who see art as a solid investment.

But one star lot - Xu Beihong’s “Portrait of a lady”, of a Singaporean woman seated in a flowing “cheongsam” dress fell short of its pre-auction hype - fetching HK$24.96 million ($3.2 million).

Another rare oil painting by Xu from a similar period had fetched $9.2 million at a Sotheby’s sale last month - making it the most expensive Chinese painting ever auctioned.

The new records came on the opening day of Christie’s spring auctions in Hong Kong, which run from May 27-31.

The day’s most expensive painting was “Scenery of Northern China” a snowy, meditative landscape by Wu Guanzhong, which sold for HK31.7 million ($4.05 million) in a hall conspicuous for its large contingent of mainland Chinese bidders and spectators.

Christie’s expects to sell HK$1.1 billion of paintings, ceramics, jewellery and watches in its current Hong Kong sales - significantly less than the HK$1.64 billion total sales tally at its previous Hong Kong auction series last autumn.

Andy Warhol’s acid-green painting of a gruesome car wreck sold for $71.7 million last night, as Christie’s International sped past rival Sotheby’s to chalk up the biggest-ever auction of postwar and contemporary art. The sale in New York raised $384.7 million, beating the previous high set on Tuesday at Sotheby’s by more than 50 percent, as the market confounded predictions of overheating and extended its position as one of the fastest-rising investments. Telephone bids poured in from around the world, 22 artist records tumbled and presale estimates were meaningless.

“It’s heated and rising,” said New York dealer Ann Freedman of Knoedler & Co. “Sales are raking in records consistently. There’s a great of deal of money competing for select works of art.”

A roomful of pinstriped dealers, millionaires and billionaires, including Teddy Forstmann and Michael Ovitz, watched artist records tumble one after another: Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman and the roll call went on. All but four of the 78 lots sold, with 56 selling for more than $1 million.

The price for Warhol’s 1963 “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)” was the highest ever for the Pop Art star and just $1.1 million shy of the $72.8 million postwar record set at Sotheby’s on Tuesday by a Mark Rothko painting. Last night’s sale was second only to Christie’s $491.5 million auction of Impressionist and modern art last November, which was swollen by Nazi-restituted works.

Mao Eclipsed

“Each year, people who are old hands say ‘I wonder if this can hold?”’ said collector and Museum of Modern Art trustee Barbara Jakobson, donning her signature bright yellow eyeglasses as she exited the salesroom. “It just seems to be a rising market.”

As in Sotheby’s Tuesday’s sale, there was little regard for price precedents. Warhol’s previous record, set in November, was $17.4 million for a 1972 portrait of China’s former chairman Mao Zedong. “Green Car Crash,” which had a top estimate of $35 million, last appeared at auction in 1978, when it fetched about 36,000 pounds ($69,000) at Christie’s in London.

The Warhol was sold to an anonymous phone bidder, speaking with a Hong Kong-based Christie’s representative, leading dealers to speculate the buyer was Asian.

Warhol was huge in the evening’s tally. Ten Warhols added $136.7 million to the total.

“Lemon Marilyn,” a portrait of doomed starlet Marilyn Monroe with a purple face on a yellow background, was estimated to fetch up to $18 million and sold for $28 million. It was acquired by the seller for a few hundred dollars in 1962, the year it was painted.

Rockefeller Rothko

The week’s affection for Rothko also continued. A 1954 painting by the brooding Abstract Expressionist sold by dealer Robert Mnuchin fetched $26.9 million and a plumy 1961 canvas went for $22.4 million. Dealers said Tuesday’s record price for a Rothko was helped by the fact that the seller was David Rockefeller Sr.

Prices include a commission of 20 percent of the hammer price up to $500,000 and 12 percent on the rest.

The geographic breakdown of buyers shows a global expansion in bidders for famous-name art. Christie’s said 47 percent of buyers last night were American, down from 82 percent in the fall of 2005. Asians represented 18 percent of buyers, up from 3 percent and close to the 19 percent from Europe and Russia.

Warhol painted the 7 1/2-foot “Green Car Crash” by repeating a photo of a bizarre accident published in Newsweek. During a police chase, a fleeing car crashed into a telephone pole, overturned and hurled the 24-year-old driver against a spike in the pole. The multiple images show him limp and impaled. The work is part of the artist’s “Death and Disaster” series, which included electric chairs and suicides.

Marilyn Appeal

The success of “Green Car Crash” surprised some dealers who said the artist’s sultry portraits of Monroe typically had more appeal for collectors. The second- and third-most-expensive Warhols sold at auction before last night were Marilyns.

“New buyers want some sort of classy trophy,” New York private dealer Nancy Whyte said. “For that, Marilyn is perfect.”

The prices paid in the past two weeks are likely to renew predictions by some dealers and collectors that contemporary art has become overvalued.

“The rich are getting poorer,” joked private New York dealer Franck Giraud, leaving the salesroom. “They have made a lot, to spend this much in one night. It’s over the top.”

Sotheby’s spring evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York brought an outstanding total of $278,548,000, the second highest total for an auction in Sotheby’s 263-year history. The top price achieved this evening was for one of the most important watercolors by Paul Cézanne remaining in private hands, Nature morte au melon vert, which sold for $25,520,000, above the high estimate of $18 million and a record for a work on paper by the artist at auction. That price was closely followed by the record price of $23,280,000 realized by Lyonel Feininger’s spectacular Jesuiten III, the cover lot of this evening’s sale which was the subject of an intense bidding battle before selling to a round of applause (est. $7/9 million). Additional auction records were established for Marino Marini and Theo van Doesburg and for works on paper by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Giacomo Balla. The sale was over 90% sold by lot and value with 36 works selling for more than $1 million.

David Norman, a Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Worldwide, said, “We are ecstatic about the results of tonight’s sale, which were second only to the all-time record for an auction at Sotheby’s achieved back in May of 1990. There is a hunger in the marketplace for great works of art, whatever the medium or period. Tonight we saw remarkable prices for works on paper with the Cézanne still-life and Rose period Picasso; an extraordinary result for the German Expressionist work by Feininger, for rare works by artists such as Balla and van Doesburg, and fierce competition for sculpture by Giacometti and Marini. There was great depth in the bidding with numerous new buyers participating in addition to many of our long-time clients. What is particularly notable is the ever-widening geographical diversity of the buying pool. ”

Highlighting this evening’s sale was Nature morte au melon vert by Paul Cézanne from the private collection of Giuseppe Eskenazi, which sold for $25,520,000, above the pre-sale estimate of $14/18 million. That price far eclipses the previous record for a work on paper by the artist at auction set by the same work at the legendary The British Rail Pension Fund sale held at Sotheby’s London in 1989.

As many as five bidders competed for a painting from the height of Lyonel Feininger’s Expressionist period, Jesuiten III, driving the final price to $23,280,000, more than double the high estimate of $9 million and a record for the artist at auction. Bidding was also fierce for Fernand Léger’s superb Les Usines, from 1918, which was sought-after by as many as six different bidders driving the final price to $14,320,000. The painting, which is a brilliant example of the artist’s fascination with the rapidly evolving urban environment, had been estimated to sell for $5/7 million.

This evening’s sale included an outstanding offering of paintings and sculpture spanning the career of Pablo Picasso – from important Rose period works to a powerful painting from 1965 that ranks among the artist’s finest Post-War canvases. Tête d’arlequin, one in a series of eight portraits of an anonymous adolescent boy (including the masterful Garçon à la pipe sold by Sotheby’s in 2004 for a record $104.2 million) sold for $15,160,000. A stunning work on paper, Famille d’arlequin, consigned by the family of renowned American collector, Joan Whitney Payson, surpassed a high estimate of $8 million to sell for $9,840,000. Another work by the artist, Les Amants from 1932, a rare dual-portrait of the artist watching his young lover Marie-Thérèse Walter as she sleeps, sold for $14,600,000.

Le Grand Cirque by Marc Chagall was also among the top lots for this evening’s sale selling for $13,760,000. One of the artist’s largest renditions of the circus theme (159.5 x 308.5 cm) and arguably one of the finest works of its kind to ever appear on the auction market, the painting had been estimated to sell for $8/12 million. Joan Miró’s extraordinary Peinture (Le Cheval de cirque), from a series of supremely abstracted depictions of a circus horse painted at the height of his involvement with the Surrealists, brought $8,440,000 (est. $8/10 million).

Among the sculpture offered this evening was Alberto Giacometti’s Homme Traversant une place par un matin soleil, the artist’s proof from an edition of six casts which brought $7,432,000. The sculpture, which five different bidders competed for, had been estimated to sell for $4/6 million. A rare, unique and monumental sculpture by Marino Marini, L’Idea del Cavaliere, sold for $7,040,000. The sculpture, a painted wood version of a work that that was originally conceived in 1955 in plaster and cast in bronze in an edition of four, was estimated at $6/8 million.

For the third time, Sotheby’s had the privilege of offering works from the Neumann Family Collection, one of the most important collections of 20th century art in private hands. Giacomo Balla’s Velocità d’automobile + luci, which belongs to a seminal group of works exploring the ultimate concepts of Futurism: dynamism, speed and light, sold for $3,960,000, a record for a work on paper by the artist at auction, and Contra-Composition VII, a rare work by Theo van Doesburg, a leading member of the De Stijl movement brought $4,184,000, a record for the artist at auction.

A portrait of a young girl that some believe is the only known painting of English novelist Jane Austen has failed to sell at auction.

Christie’s says no one offered the owner’s minimum price for the painting that had been expected to fetch between $US400,000 and $US800,000.

A spokeswoman for the auction house says the minimum level was kept secret.

The portrait by English society artist Ozias Humphry was put up for sale by Henry Rice, a distant relative of the writer of classics such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice who died in 1817.

Rice has said the sale of the work, which some experts have said does not depict Austen, had stirred up controversy.

In 1948, a leading Austen scholar dismissed the authenticity of the portrait, saying the style of costume the subject wears does not match the date.

But Rice and his family have said they never doubted the girl wearing a long white dress and carrying a parasol was their ancestor.

The painting is thought to date from 1788 or 1789 when Austen would have been about 14.

Rice had the painting examined by academics including Austen scholar Claudia Johnson at Princeton University, and they supported the original attribution and subject matter.

“The painting had rather fallen into the abyss,” Rice told Reuters in an interview last month.

“So I decided to take up the challenge and found that many of the arguments against the painting [being of Austen] were extremely weak.

“Effectively they were calling us liars. Then we really started a bit of a crusade.

“We were lucky in the people we met, including quite a lot of Americans, and the thing gathered strength, but there was fierce resistance and there probably still will be.”

He offered the painting to the National Portrait Gallery in London several times, but officials there turned it down because of doubts over its authenticity.

“So we decided to take it to America where it has more friends,” he said.

Christie’s auctioneers say they were sufficiently sure of recent research to go ahead with the sale.

A 27-year-old student from London has been awarded the Nationwide Mercury art prize at a ceremony held in Covent Garden.

Mark Melvin, who is studying at Central Saint Martins in the capital, won the award for his installation piece Applause, securing a £5,000 prize.

DJ and TV presenter Lauren Laverne was on hand to announce the winner and the artwork will now grace the cover of the 2007 Nationwide Mercury Prize compilation CD, which is released in August.

Mr Melvin studied as an undergraduate at Glasgow School of Art before moving to London. He said the award will ‘make a huge difference’ to his career as an artist.

‘This is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. I am completely overwhelmed to win this prestigious prize and be recognised in this way,’ he added.

Other artists picking up the £1,000 highly commended awards included Rachael Clewlow from the University of Newcastle and David Sullivan and Tamara Dubnyckyj, from the Royal College of Art.

David Rankin from Manchester Metropolitan University and Clare Dorsett from the University of Brighton also won the £1,000 award.

Sir Peter Blake, an artist on the judging panel, said: ‘The art here is from students from all over the country - it was a difficult task choosing the finalists.

‘This is a very impressive exhibition that highlights the outstanding quality of work coming out of British art schools and the ongoing relationship between music and art.’

Over 2,000 entries were received for this year’s art prize, including work from over 130 art colleges and universities.

After last year’s shocking exhibition of photographs of his father’s dead body lying on a mortuary slab covered in bruises, a New Zealand artist now exhibited his father Neville’s ashes.

Nigel Madden is competing in this year’s Norsewear Art Awards with this work. He says that in the end, his father, an alcoholic, is much more useful dead that he was alive.

The ashes are stored in a Belgium-made urn that Madden bought off the Internet and the plinth is handmade. I took my father’s ashes and placed them in a reflective urn and placed it on a pedestal. In this way my father’s remains function as a symbol and represent art, the author said.

Although his last year’s work “Three Portraits of Neville Madden” was the mourning of the dysfunctional father-son relationship, the artist claims that this year’s work, dubbed “The End of Art”, is less personal.

Madden quotes Picasso: “In art one must kill one’s father”. He liked the cold, reflective surface of the urn that ceases being important as an object and becomes the home of one’s own thoughts. He is also pleased with the ashes as material because it is not often that an artist gets to work with human mortal remains.

The work is up for sale for two thousand dollars, but finding a buyer is difficult.

The three photographs he displayed last year show his dead father on a mortuary slab, his body covered in bruises that he got after suffering a heart attack and falling off a bar stool in a hotel where he had been drinking before a rugby match.

The purpose of the photographs is not morbid in nature. Madden does not deem his conduct as immoral, but just raw and what it is because a dead body for him is just a shell. With the shocking photographs the artist wanted to depict something subtle, relationships. The photographs selected for the exhibition were marked with a warning sign for the audience.

The Norsewear Art Awards exhibition opens in hastings on New Zealand on April 14 and remains open until May 27. The winner of the award gets 20,000 dollars, and second and third contesters get 5,000 dollars each. This national annual award for modern art tries to discover and stimulate excellence in art. This year it is celebrating its 21^st anniversary.

Abu Dhabi signed a deal with France on Tuesday to build a spinoff of its most famous museum, the Louvre, in the Gulf emirate better known for oil than art.Abu Dhabi will pay 400 million euros ($525 million) to use the prestigious Louvre name for 30 years as part of a cultural accord that will see paintings from the home of the Mona Lisa exhibited in the museum to be built on a luxury resort island.

“We have decided to create together a museum destined to foster cultural dialogue between East and West by exhibiting works of major importance … spanning all historic periods,” said French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, who signed the deal in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital.

French governments have traditionally seen France’s rich cultural heritage as a tool for furthering political interests.

The plan to export a version of the Louvre has sparked accusations in France that the government was sacrificing cultural standards for profit.

Dubbed the “Louvre in the sands” by French media, the project has triggered opposition from experts in France who fear it will distort the museum’s true function as a center of scholarship and home to Western art treasures.

Donnedieu de Vabres defended the deal, which includes temporary loans of art works, technical support and training, as one that would spread French culture, but reassured critics that the Louvre’s greatest treasures would never leave France.

The United Arab Emirates, an energy-producing federation of seven emirates that includes Dubai, is developing its tourism industry as part of a drive to wean the economy off oil money. Dubai is already a major regional tourist hub.

MIDDLE EAST ART HUB

The new museum will be built as part of Saadiyat Island (Island of Happiness), a $27-$29 billion luxury tourist resort that will have marinas, shops and five art centers including the world’s largest Guggenheim, designed by Frank Gehry.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, will cover 24,000 square meters, including 6,000 square meters of permanent galleries. The complex, under a patterned dome shedding dappled light inside, is due to open around 2012.

The Paris Louvre will staff and manage the museum and lend it works of art, but it will also build up its own major art collection. UAE officials said there would be no restriction on the type of art to be displayed.

“This will be a universal museum. The whole initiative is to create a hub for art in the Middle East,” said Mubarak al-Muhairi, director-general of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. “The focus will be on classical art but we will also be focusing on the region.”

Donnedieu de Vabres said the whole deal would be worth almost 1 billion euros, excluding the cost of building the Louvre Abu Dhabi and buying its collection. UAE officials said it was too early to say how much the museum would cost to build.

France has already agreed to set up an Abu Dhabi branch of the Sorbonne, Paris’s main university since the 13th century, and the Center Pompidou, one of France’s main modern art museums, is looking at setting up an annex in Shanghai.