Preventive conservation and restoration
The collections of the musée Nicéphore Niépce are spread out over eight storage areas, categorised by materials, format and inventory numbers.
The main mission of conservation takes place during the checking process where the museum’s inventories are verified.During this process, the inventory team checks the condition of each object and verifies that the storage methods are suitable to the material of the object.
An analysis of the information gained during the checking process led to the implementation of a number of restoration and repackaging campaigns for certain collections.
For example, since 2003, the museum has had 2 to 3 albums restored per year and all of the packing of all of the albums has been checked since 2008.
The 400 daguerreotypes were repacked by the museum’s team in 2010 and have since undergone numerous restorations campaigns.
The acquisition of a large collection of ferrotypes in 2009 led to a similar project in 2011.
In addition to these long-term procedures, the museum regularly restores isolated, rare objects, often in bad condition that will eventually, in the short or medium term, take their place on display in the permanent collection.