The Louvre is also a work of art

Located in the Louvre's Pavilion de l'Horologe, the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Centre is a multi-storey interpretation facility dedicated to explaining the 800-year-long history of the museum and its collections.

View of the pyramids at the Louvre in Paris, France. The museum has opened the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Centre in the Pavilion de l’Horologe. Christophe Morin for The National

When it comes to finding the Mona Lisa among the Musee du Louvre's 70,000 square metres of galleries and 38,000 works of art, visitors are presented with two options.

But those who take the advice of the museum's guides follow a more circuitous route that takes in one of the Louvre's other great ladies, the Venus de Milo, and passes through the grand 17th- century Pavilion de l'Horologe (Clock Pavilion).

It includes displays dedicated to the museum's research and conservation projects, including a 1,700-year-old pair of sandals from Egypt, and loans and new acquisitions such as Reading the Bible, a painting by the French 18th-century artist Jean-Baptiste Greuze.