The Teeny Abu Dhabi Apartment has one big, odd characteristic.

It has five large (to very large) blank, white walls.

That is, it has five tracts of vertical space practically crying out, “Put some art on me! Hang a tapestry! Do something to cover up my white nakedness!”

So, today I did.

The previous tenant left behind three not utterly objectionable canvas-like rectangles of, oh, I don’t know, abstract art, I suppose. One is a pattern of 25 squares with squares within squares, varying in color (green, brown, tan) … another is a horizontal (talking like a photog, here) that might be a suspension bridge (or nothing at all) and the other … some other something. Each fairly big, but each a bit too small for the space they are in.

(Whatever the art is, it certainly isn’t Middle Eastern. The stuff is European/American. Which reinforces our belief that an American or European lived here before we did. If not directly before us, somewhere not far back.)

The biggest two walls are thoroughly bare.  The one behind the unhooked-up TV in the den, and on the far wall of the bedroom. Did the previous renter like the stuff on there so much he/she took it? Or were the big walls left blank … for some reason?

Anyway, the den seemed to call out “me first.”

So, we were walking through Ikea the other day, looking for a mattress pad and maybe one more piece of vertical furniture for storage (clothes, books, the stuff we can’t find a place for) … and toward the end of our peregrinations through the Ikea maze Leah pointed out a large, framed print she had seen on her previous visit.

It is a view of Paris and the Seine. In black and white. Taken at night. So it’s moody. In the foreground is the Seine, making a broad left-hand sweep as it heads toward the ocean. We can see no fewer than five bridges.

Upper left, but not quite all the way to the left, is the Eiffel Tower,  and it is by far the brightest image in the poster. It is a sort of glittering gold, with lights shining out from among the steel beams. The photographer (Jean-Marc Charles) has colored the Eiffel Tower, or enhanced it, and eliminated any other color that might have snuck into this middle-of-the-night photo.

The Eiffel Tower draws your eye, of course.

Behind it, and in the upper left corner are two more distant buildings.  We think one is the dome of Les Invalides, in the 7th.

I also was taken by this piece of art/photography. I like Paris (though not as much as does Leah, who lived there for seven years), and there’s something almost homey about it for both of us. Especially considering where we are now — another three time zones further east.

But it is also an interesting poster because anyone who knows Paris will immediately try to figure out where this picture was taken.

It took me several minutes of looking at it to realize that the dark, bulky buildings in the middle of the photo … are on the Ile de la Cite. At first I thought the photo must have been taken near the top of one of Notre Dame’s towers, and that the buildings were on the Rive Gauche, in the 4th arrondisement.

But eventually I decided, “No, there’s nowhere on the Left Bank that is that dark, even on a cold winter night (which is my guess of what it is, given how little traffic is on the bridges).”

So, yes, that is the Ile de la Cite, and Notre Dame must be just off the photo to the left … so, the water in the foreground is the half of the Seine that flows on the north side of the island … and the photo must be taken from the Rive Droite.

Or could it be taken from the Ile Saint-Louis? No, probably not. No building on that little island would yield a high-enough perspective.

Maybe a helicopter? A plane?

Leah wonders if it was taken from the top of the venerable (now closed) Samaritaine department store. From a rooftop restaurant named “Toupary.” (The IHT had its 1999 Christmas party there.)

But looking closer, we’re not so sure. The Samaritaine doesn’t seem as if it is far enough east to yield this perspective. We have too many bridges to account for.

So that makes it even more fun. We have been staring at this thing for two hours and we’re not sure, still, where the photo was taken. “Someplace 10-12 stories high and perhaps even near Bastille.”

For purposes of the wall and the room … this big ol’ poster (which cost all of $54, framed) … is a big success, in my opinion.

But getting it to our wall was a trick.

First, the cab ride out to Marina Mall, at the farthest tip of Abu Dhabi island. Then the purchase. The wait for a cab. The massively frustrating realization that no matter how I turned the metal-and-wood frame … I couldn’t get the picture into the cab. By a matter of an inch or two — on a 55-inch-wide poster. It was that close.

Ack.

The cabbie helpfully told me, “pickup, pickup.” As in pickup truck. Well, sure, I could use a pickup truck. But I don’t have one and I’m not going to rent one just to move this oversized framed print.

So, back into the Mall, down to the Ikea “out” door, to the shipping desk … where I am told I can’t have it included with the other order we already have there — which is coming to the house on Dec.30 — because they won’t ship art with furniture. It could get torn/scratched. Which I can sort of see, but if they lashed it? Nope.

But, for 50 dirhams ($13.50) I can have a jobber take it to where I live … “in an hour or so.” OK. An hour or so isn’t so bad. It will take me 20-25 minutes just on the cab ride back.

So, back to the Teeny Apartment, and a vigil begins. One hour, two, three, four … after an e-mail and three phone calls, finally a couple of guys show up with the print lashed to the side of their truck. I wrestled it inside and propped it up above the TV on the wall where the picture will eventually hang, almost the perfect size for the wall.

I’m glad, now, that I did it. As it turns out, it consumed almost an entire day off.

But when it comes to art, we must sacrifice. Apparently. And if you come visit, you will see.