Amélie Couvrat Desvergnes

I am an independent conservator working on paper artworks, books, maps, posters, 3D paper objects, modern art. I received my M.A. in Conservation from the University Panthéon-Sorbonne-Paris in 2002. I did placements at la Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Tate Britain, the National Museum of Hungary, and the National Museum of India in New-Delhi. After working 10 years as a free-lancer in France, 5 years at the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, and 2 years at the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam, I opened my own practice in Utrecht, in the Netherlands.

I am specializing in Islamicate manuscripts and Indian miniatures paintings. I am fascinated by the way the ancient objects were made, their materials, and the story of their author. I love investigating through their materials and understanding their purpose and their social and historical background. During the past years, I carried out several research projects on the materiality of Islamicate manuscripts, Indian paintings and drawings, in France, Qatar and the Netherlands. I taught at the Conservation Master programmes in Paris la Sorbonne and at University van Amsterdam. I delivered short courses in Heidelberg University (Germany) and at the Kitapsifahanesi in Istanbul. I lectured in international conferences and I have published several articles in conservation journals, essays and exhibition catalogues.

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.

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