Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT) will make its vast, previously inaccessible art and artifact holdings public over the coming year, including publishing an online catalogue and offering research opportunities. To mark this shift, DCT is presenting Nicolas Poussin’s *Confirmation* at Louvre Abu Dhabi—a masterpiece that had been held in Britain for 240 years and was blocked from export by the UK government in 2022 when it failed to raise £19m to match the buyer’s offer, now presumed to be DCT. The painting goes on show alongside Poussin’s *Self-portrait* from the Musée du Louvre.
The move matters because it signals a major shift in Abu Dhabi’s cultural strategy: DCT’s collection, begun under Sheikh Zayed in 1968, includes thousands of works from contemporary art to archaeology, and will supply long-term loans to the Zayed National Museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and other local museums. The opening of the Poussin exhibition also highlights the growing authority of Abu Dhabi over its cultural institutions, as the DCT now directly oversees the Saadiyat Cultural District projects, with around 30% of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi’s inaugural display coming from DCT’s holdings.