ABOUT ME

Amélie Couvrat Desvergnes

I am an independent conservator working on paper artworks, books, maps, posters, 3D paper objects, modern art, etc. I received my M.A. in Conservation from the University Panthéon-Sorbonne-Paris in 2002. I worked for 10 years as a freelancer in France, 5 years at the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar and 2 years at the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam. From 2020 to 2023, I led a conservation and research project at the Werelmuseum in Leiden. And in 2024-2025, I was project conservator at the KB- National Bibliotheek in The Hague.

I specialise in Islamic and South Asian manuscripts and works on paper. I am fascinated by the way ancient objects were made, by their materials and by the story of their creator. I enjoy investigating these materials and understanding their function as well as their social and historical context. In recent years, I have carried out several research projects on the materiality of Islamic manuscripts and Indian paintings and drawings, in France, Qatar and the Netherlands. I have taught in conservation master programmes at Paris la Sorbonne and the University of Amsterdam. I have given short courses at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), Kitapsifahanesi in Istanbul, the National Library of Qatar, the Institut National du Patrimoine in Paris and the Centre for Conservation and Preservation at Yale University Library. I have participated in international conferences and published several articles in conservation journals, essays and exhibition catalogues.

In 2020, I received Metamorfoze funding for my conservation and research project on drawings and paintings from north-west India at the Wereldmuseum Leiden.

In 2020, I was a Junior Fellow from the Research Centre for Material Culture in Leiden, and I studied the paper supports found in Northwestern Indian drawings from the ethnological and contextual aspects.

In 2015, I was awarded by the Grand Scheme from the Islamic Manuscript association to complete my research project on interleaving materials encountered in Moroccan manuscripts.

My complete CV can be found below