Harvard Art received one of twelve 2006 French-American Partnership grants from the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation and the Florence Gould Foundation. With this coveted award, Harvard Art hosted French gilding conservation and restoration expert Marie Dubost from the Atelier de la Feuille d’Or in Paris. Dubost led a weeklong workshop at the Harvard Art studio on repareur, a technique used for recutting gesso, which was attended by Harvard Art’s team and practicing conservators from New York and Boston. The partnership culminated in a weekend seminar at Delaware’s Winterthur Museum, where Dubost and Harvard Art’s Susan Jackson joined the other French-American Partnership grant recipients.
Harvard Art succeeded in realizing the goals of this grant-funded project, which included working directly with French conservators in our studios; learning additional craft and conservation skills from a master European craftsman; exploring differences in conservation education; developing sustainable international career exchanges; and inviting French conservators to see some of the best American furniture and conservation schools in the United States.