[10] Also in the summer of 2005, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan sent a letter about the project to France's president Jacques Chirac.

[11]: 12 Meanwhile, the Abu Dhabi authorities in 2006 selected Jean Nouvel, known among other projects for having designed the Arab World Institute in Paris, as the building's architect.

They initially commissioned his firm to design a generic museum of classical art or civilisation, without specific reference to the Louvre while discussions with the French authorities were still ongoing.

[12][13] The choice of Nouvel had been first suggested by Thomas Krens, then the director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and adviser to Abu Dhabi on the development of Saadiyat Island.

[10] The project initially generated controversy, including an op-ed and petition against it by curators Françoise Cachin, Jean Clair and Roland Recht [fr].

[22] On 29 October 2011, the project managing agency, Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), announced that the museum's opening would be delayed but gave no new date.

[28][29][30] Construction on the main phase of the museum began in early 2013 by a consortium headed by Arabtec, Constructora San José and Oger Abu Dhabi, under a $653 million contract.

It was inaugurated by Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Nicolas Sarkozy on 26 May 2009, the same day as the construction work officially started on Saadiyat Island.

The exhibition presented the first 19 acquisitions for the institution, including a Mamluk Quran from the 14th century, a 5th-century Fibula from Domagnano, a Virgin and Child by Bellini, and Mondrian's Composition with blue, red, yellow and black from 1922.

[39] In November 2019, the waterfront boulevard on which the museum is located on the eastern end of Saadiyat Island was named after former French President Jacques Chirac, in recognition of his role in the project and more generally in the development of links between France and the UAE.

[40] In February 2020, a Fouquet's restaurant opened as the main catering amenity inside the museum, with a menu created in partnership with celebrity chef Pierre Gagnaire.

A team of specialist geotechnical and water engineers designed a watertight basement and tidal pools within the galleries to give the illusion of a "museum in the sea" while protecting artwork, artefacts and visitors from the corrosive marine environment.

However, according to The National: "the type and nature of the exhibits planned for the Louvre Abu Dhabi have been affected to no extent by the fact the new museum would be in a Muslim country, said Mr.

The museum also acquired a sculpture of a Bactrian princess dating from the third millennium BC, a pavement and fountain set from the early Ottoman period, as well as the paintings Breton Boys Wrestling (1888) by Paul Gauguin and The Subjugated Reader (1928) by René Magritte.

No date was set for the display of this work but in September 2018, the unveiling was indefinitely postponed[55] and a January 2019 news report indicated that "no one knows where it is, and there are grave concerns for its physical safety".

[57] That agreement foresaw the establishment by the French side of a private-sector project entity, which was subsequently incorporated on 23 August 2007 and named Agence France-Muséums [fr] (AFM).

[58] AFM was initially chaired by French financier and philanthropist Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière and led by Bruno Maquart, former head of the Centre Georges Pompidou, as its Executive Director.

[11] As of 2017 (included), according to the French Senate, the cumulated payments had reached €477 million,[11]: 33  broadly in line with the initial agreement's provisions[11]: 20  despite the delays in project execution.

The March 2007 agreement prohibits the creation of any similar operation with the name of the Louvre in any of the other emirates of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, or Iraq.

[12] Manuel Rabaté, formerly a senior administrator at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, was the agency's general secretary from 2010 to 2013, then chief executive from 2013 to 2016, and in September 2016 was appointed the Louvre Abu Dhabi's first director.

[69][70] Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, characterized the Louvre as behaving "like a corporation with a clearly-defined strategy: profit maximization.

[43] Human Rights Watch reported issues during construction of Louvre Abu Dhabi including the confiscation of workers passports resulting in forced labour conditions.

[75] The museum has been criticized for not fulfilling its stated intent of balancing western and eastern cultural and artistic perspectives, particularly in its collections of modern and contemporary art which exhibit a marked European focus.