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Located by the Arabian Gulf, the dozens of buildings that comprise the museum are linked by waterfront promenades and the museum’s most striking feature, its dome.
The huge 180 metre-wide dome is made up of eight layers of geometric metal stars and appears to float above the museum complex. As sunlight filters through the dome’s perforations, this creates a ‘rain of light’ effect in the museum below.
Notable artworks
The museum collection includes a number of significant works, including one of the finest examples of a standing Bactrian princess from approximately 2000 BCE; a 3,000-year-old Middle Eastern gold bracelet featuring a lion's head; and an 1878 painting by Osman Hamdi Bey titled Young Emir Studying.
Other important works include Paul Gauguin’s masterpiece Children Wrestling; the René Magritte painting The Subjugated Reader; a 1928 collage by Picasso titled Portrait of a Lady; nine canvasses by contemporary artist Cy Twombly; and the oldest known photographic representation of a veiled woman.
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