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Rabat – The wife of French President Emmanuel Macron, Brigitte Macron, received today Moroccan artist and President of the Moroccan National Museum Foundation (FNM) Mehdi Qotbi.
Macron welcomed Mehdi Qotbi at the Elysee Palace in Paris for a lunch meeting to discuss the Eugene Delacroix exhibition that is set to take place next spring in Morocco.
The exhibition that the Louvre Museum and the Delacroix Museum co-organized was postponed from April 2020 to April 2021 due to the spread of COVID-19. It will take place at the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMVI) in Rabat.
The lunch meeting of Macron with Mehdi Qotbi came to follow and assess the progress of the exposition at MMVI, which will be the first dedicated to Eugene Delacroix in Africa or the Arab world.
The Moroccan official signed an agreement with Louvre Museum President Jean-Luc Martinez in June 2019 to bring the works of the late French artist to Rabat.
Art fans know Delacroix, who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries, for painting the famous “Liberty Leading the People” in 1830.
Mehdi Qotbi’s reception at the Elysee Palace is not the first of its kind. Several French leaders have received the Moroccan artist, including former presidents of France Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Francois Hollande.
In 2016, Hollande granted Qotbi the insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honor, the highest award in France, during a ceremony in the Elysee Palace.
Qotbi has often represented Morocco in culture and art events, and played the role of a cultural intermediary between his country and other entities.
In 2017, King Mohammed VI appointed Qotbi as Morocco’s representative in the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Zones (ALIPH).
In January 2020, the Moroccan painter signed two agreements with the National Museum of China. They aimed to enhance cooperation and cultural exchange between the two nations by organizing exhibitions in both countries.
