Sophie Budden, Conservateur at Dar al athar al Islamiyah

During a lecture at Dar Al Athar al Islamiyah, Sophie Budden talked about her job at the al Sabah Collection, covering more than 22 000 objects. With a wide range of pieces from fabric, to carpets, to metal, to stones, to manuscripts; and from different eras, to different provenance, Sophie was talking about her aim: general care, cleaning, storing, finding,  packing, exhibiting.
It all sounded quite thrilling.

She showed pictures of before and after, she showed how meticulous the work had to be done, how precise scalpels under microscope took 4 to 6 weeks to clean a metal object to restore and give it a shine. She had a higher pitch of voice when she tried to convey her excitement on how it was "terribly neat to look and find what you want" through the custom made data base for the collection or through the endless storage shelfs. She mentioned "vigilance" as a time consuming effort for keeping the objects safe from humidity, from moths...
She shared her amazement after cleaning a silver enamelled sword, the exuberance of true minuscule carving showed and how the movement of luminosity is reflected and refracted

It seems that Sophie Budden has an incredible mission: Civilisations disappear, people die, and she fights the time machine to protect the precious objects from going back into dust.

more on the lecture at the DIA blog link