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Antione de Vermoutier

Antoine de Vermoutier, of Jellinek & Vermoutier, established in 1962, Cottage Antiques, Stow-on-the Wold, established 1970, and Vermoutier & Banks, London, established in c.1972.

Antoine de Vermoutier at home, 2019

Photograph of Antoine de Vermoutier at home © Antique Dealers Research Project, University of Leeds, 2019.

A conversation between Antoine de Vermoutier and project lead Mark Westgarth, which is the second in our 'LAPADA Voices' extension to the antique dealers' oral history project.

Antoine de Vermoutier began his life in the antique trade trading from a stall in Portobello Road, London in 1962 with the antique dealer, actor and writer Tristram Jellinek (1933-1995), before embarking on a series of influential partnerships and collaborations with various other leading antique dealers, including Alastair  Sampson and Christopher Banks. Antoine was a specialist dealer in English ceramics and as well as dealing in London spend a lot of time in the USA, working with leading antique ceramic specialist Earle D. Vandekar in New York in the mid 1990s.

As well as his career as an antique dealer Antione was also an antiques personality on American TV, as an expert on the American version of 'Antiques Roadshow' together with Chris Jussel, who we also interviewed for the Oral History project back in 2014.  In this very engaging interview, conducted at his home in Herefordshire, Antoine reflects on his life as a dealer, and as a passionate collector of English ceramics and 18th century needlework, recalling what life was like in the major antique dealing thoroughfare of Kensington Church Street, London in the 1960s and 1970s, and at the countryside antique dealing hub of the Cotswolds in the 1970 and 1980s.

Our interview with Antoine continues our oral history archives and makes a very significant contribution towards our understanding of the antique business in London, the regions and in the USA during the second half of the 20th century.

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