David Dallas

David Dallas joined Christie’s in 1969, where he was the youngest person in a Technical Department (Old Masters). He subsequently became deputy head of the Picture Department at Phillips Son and Neale and ended his auctioneering career as International Director (Global Head) of Old Masters at Bonham’s in January 2015.

In between he worked for more than twenty years with Johnny Van Haeften, specialising in Dutch and Flemish paintings of the 17th Century. He is a specialist in British Landscape Paintings 1750-1850.

He was for many years on the Vetting Committee of the Summer and Winter Art and Antiques Fair at Olympia and Chairman of the Picture Vetting Committee at Grosvenor House Fair and has also been on the vetting committee of Masterpiece. He is a trustee of the Reading Foundation for Art, a former Chairman of The Friends of Reading Museum and Gallery and an external adviser to the Collections Committee of Eton College.

Learn more about David:

If I could own any work of art..

If I could own any great Work of Art in the world, it would be the Bedford Hours in the British Library. Although it comes from outside my sphere of expertise, as it is really a book, it has so many outstandingly beautiful painted pages and 1250 exquisite marginal details that it appeals to a picture specialist.

This fabulous Book of Hours was commissioned in the 1420s by the Duke of Bedford, brother of King Henry V to commemorate his marriage to the 18-year-old Anne of Burgundy, sister of Philip, Duke of Burgundy and daughter of John the Fearless.

The author of this magical book is an unknown painter, referred to as the ‘Bedford Master’ who ran a very successful illuminating business in Paris in the first half of the 15^th Century. There are other important manuscripts attributed to him and his workshop.

The Bedford Hours, as well as marginal illustrations, contains 31 principal miniatures and related roundels and over 1000 small circular miniatures. The principal full-page miniatures are a wonderful snapshot of medieval courtly life, religious belief and rural practice. The perfectly preserved details in these miniatures would keep any scholar with a magnifying glass happily occupied for a lifetime.

There is a little-known story about its provenance in the late 18^th Century. Having spent most of its life in Royal Libraries, The Bedford Hours came up for auction in 1786 with the Library of the Duchess of Portland. She had inherited the missal from her bibliophile father, the Earl of Oxford. King George III sent his bookseller to examine it and was told it would fetch a high price.’How high?’ asked the King. ‘Probably 200 guineas’ came the reply. ‘200 guineas for a missal’ said the Queen, astonished. ‘Well, well’ said the King ‘I’ll still have it but as the Queen thinks 200 guineas so enormous a sum for a missal, I’ll go no further’. This actually was the King’s last bid and by advancing a further 3 guineas, James Edwards of Halifax, the celebrated book binder and book seller, with premises in Pall Mall, London, bought it. My friend and colleague Richard Fattorini, our Rare Books and Manuscripts specialist, has suggested an insurance value of £30 million. Oh to have had 203 guineas in 1786!

The favourite things in my collection..

As many people know, I have always been a fan of Francis Denby, the romantic landscape painter. He was born to  protestant parents in County Wexford in 1791 and came to England in 1812 with two Irish friends. Only one of them managed to save enough money for the trip home, so Danby stayed in Bristol, taught drawing and founded the ‘Bristol School of Artists’.

After a rather hasty and ill-judged marriage, he began an affair with his children’s nanny, which scandalised London Society and his fellow artists and he was advised to travel abroad indefinitely. He toured Ghent and Paris and ended up in Geneva, where he lived for most of the 1830s. He had travelled with the nanny and his sons Thomas and James Francis. As time went by, the nanny produced further children and Danby was required to take his account book to the Department des Etrangers every year, to prove that he wasn’t going to be a burden to the Swiss state. He was regarded as the best landscape painter in Switzerland and garnered a considerable clientele, so he could easily prove he was financially viable.

He took lodgings in Geneva and built a yacht called La Sorciere, which was reputed to be the fastest boat on Lake Geneva. Imagine my excitement when a dealer offered me, over the telephone, a portrait of Danby and three of his children, drawn by his Swiss landlady. It and a few other Danby-related relics had stayed with her family until the 1980s when they decided to sell them. When I first saw the drawing, I realised that it wasn’t done by his artistic landlady but by Danby himself! Portraits by Danby can be counted on one hand.  Not only was I familiar with the drawing of his son in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, which was identical in style and technique, but this drawing had the original inscription on the mount: ‘Danby, son portrait et ses enfants’. Like the Latin ‘se Ipse’, it was recording that it was Danby, his own portrait, and his children’. It is the only known self-portrait by the artist.

My Other Career…

If I were not a valuer, I think I would have been a G.P. As a valuer, I love identifying things, so diagnosis is second nature and you also have to let people down gently when there are disappointments, so I have developed a good bedside manner.

My school exam results would indicate medicine as a good option. I got a 1 in Biology ‘O’ Level. The equivalent of an A* today and was, in fact, the top biologist of my generation at the ‘O’ level stage. I think it would be dishonest not to qualify this a little. I, like many other boys, was too thick to do Additional Maths ‘O’ Level and never gained anything more that a 4 (B) in Elementary Maths. We thick boys were not allowed to do Physics ‘O’ Level as our maths was so poor, so we had to do ‘Bilge’ instead.

I think being a G.P. would be my metier. It would be fascinating, varied and useful to my fellow man, once I’m fully trained. With my poor Maths, I would not trust myself as an anaesthetist, for instance. Get the numbers wrong and the patients don’t wake up.