Wall art size guide for Qatar: from the majlis wall to the apartment

The majlis sets the scale of a Qatari home. Its seating runs along the walls, on floor cushions or a raised shelf, and the modern majlis swaps the cushions for low-profile sofas. Guests look across the room at the wall opposite, so the band above the backrests is where a painting goes. That band is long and shallow, so a panoramic canvas, two or three times as wide as it is high, suits it better than a tall one.

Aim for about two-thirds of the seating run; past about 3 metres, a diptych or triptych hung 5–8 cm (2–3 in) apart reads as one picture. One design firm's guide to Qatari villas describes majlis rooms with detailed wall panels and symmetrical seating: on a panelled wall, size the painting to the central panel and centre it on the host's seat. Hang it for seated eyes, the bottom edge 20–30 cm (8–12 in) above the backrest, which usually puts the centre near 125–135 cm (49–53 in) rather than the 145–150 cm (57–59 in) of a standing room. Calligraphy, geometry, abstraction and landscape suit the room (see the Qatar styles guide).

Sizes are canvas widths unless marked tall; inches are rounded. A villa often needs several rows at once: one Al Dafna villa listed in 2026 has three family lounges and an interior majlis on its ground floor, plus a separate external majlis.

What to hang in each room is in villas and majlis in Qatar; the wider market is in the Qatar wall art guide.

In Qatar the art usually comes last: one Gulf design channel's guide to furnishing a majlis lists ten priorities, from seating layout to chandeliers and curtains, and leaves paintings among the finishing accessories. That works in your favour: with the furniture in, you can measure the exact bay.

• Width: about two-thirds of the sofa, bed, sideboard or seating below it, and never wider.
• Distance: in a long room, the longer side can be a third of the viewing distance; take whichever rule gives the larger size.
• Height: keep at least 25 cm (10 in) of wall above the canvas; under a tall ceiling, let the canvas grow taller rather than wider.

Then mark the outline on the wall with masking tape, look at it from the door and from the seats, and send us a photo: we suggest designs that fit it.

Qatari rooms are getting taller. Under the 2026 villa rules a detached majlis building may rise 7.5–10 metres with a mezzanine covering up to 80% of its floor, and the main house may add a mezzanine of up to 35% of its area. Those are building heights rather than ceilings, but they mean more walls seen from two levels. A Pearl villa listed in 2026 has a double-height reception, and in a Qatar University study of villas built around 2015, the largest room in one house was a 10 × 5 m entry hall beside the men's majlis.

A wall seen from a gallery needs height more than width. On the end wall of a hall or beside a stair, choose a vertical canvas 200–300 cm (79–118 in) tall, its bottom edge 90–120 cm (35–47 in) up, so it clears the furniture and reads from upstairs. Along a 10-metre wall, a horizontal of about 300 × 120 cm (118 × 47 in), or three panels, holds the length.

In apartments the villa's very large canvases give way to sofa-scale ones. Two-bedroom flats in Msheireb's Sikkat Wadi residences measure 143–180 m² and its four-bedroom units 361 m², and a new Lusail building is marketed with one-bedrooms from 72 m². The main wall is usually the one behind the sofa, which in a living room of that size takes a canvas of 120–180 cm (47–71 in).

Glass decides where it hangs. The towers sell their views, like the 850 m² Porto Arabia penthouse listed with floor-to-ceiling windows: choose a solid wall at right angles to the windows, out of direct sun. Double-height units, such as a La Plage South one-bedroom marketed on its double-height living space, take a vertical of 200–250 cm (79–98 in) beside the void. The districts are compared in Doha district by district.

Hotel and office walls run larger. The lobby lounge of Waldorf Astoria Lusail rises seven metres, and the QatarEnergy office district, built as Qatar Petroleum's, opens into 15-metre lobbies, with local artists commissioned for large pieces there and in the CEO suite. At that height one canvas needs to be 300 cm (118 in) or more, or a set read as one. For scale in a public room, The Ned Doha's collection includes a 170 × 235 cm (67 × 93 in) acrylic on canvas.

Guest rooms follow the bed: in a 44 m² room like Andaz Doha's, 120–150 cm (47–59 in) above a king headboard and 100–120 cm (39–47 in) in a twin room. Offices need three sizes: the reception wall, 200–300 cm (79–118 in) above the boardroom credenza, and 100–150 cm (39–59 in) in senior offices. Whole schemes are on Qatar hotels and restaurants and Qatar offices and institutions.

Start with the wall rather than a size chart: a photograph, its width, the furniture below it and the ceiling height are enough. We suggest a size and a shortlist from some 1,300 catalogue designs, or design a piece for the room and its budget; your quote usually arrives within one business day. You then see your own canvas in photographs or video at every stage, and the next stage starts only when you approve.

Canvases come rolled, stretched, or framed in gold, silver, black, white or wood. In a Doha villa of brass, bronze and rosewood, like one by the designer Katharine Pooley, gold or wood continues the scheme; in an off-white house built to let the art lead, like the Doha home the architect Ibrahim Al Jaidah designed for his brother, a collector, a slim black or white frame or none at all. For a picture of your own, see paintings from your own image.

Each canvas can travel stretched and ready to hang, framed, or rolled; a rolled canvas, the lightest and most economical way to send a large painting, arrives without stretcher bars, and any local framer can stretch it for you.