Ukrainian Refugee Conservators clean portraits for the Huguenot Museum

The Huguenot Museum in Rochester, Kent, recently appointed two fine art conservators from Ukraine to treat two 18th-century portraits from their collection. The paintings are of Huguenot refugees who fled religious persecution in France to settle in London: Jean Jacob (1708-1787), a goldsmith from Metz, and his wife Anne Courtauld (1708-1793). Around 50,000 Huguenot protestants settled in the British Isles. They were Britain’s first ‘refugees’ and introduced the word into the English language.

Seeing parallels between Huguenot refugees and those fleeing war in Ukraine, the Museum collaborated with the Katya-Belaia Selzer conservation studio to organise the project. Katya works tirelessly to secure professional development opportunities for Ukrainian conservators. The paintings were treated by Ahneta Shaskova and Valeriia Kravchenko who both trained at the Kyiv Academy of Art and Architecture.

@UK_ICOM