Coming round to Daniel’s judgment

Examining current trends and buying patterns, it seems that Mr Mankowitz – always a dealer of individual tastes – and his stock are very much of the moment.

He has moved into a complex full of interior designers and other creative enterprises but he is the first antiques dealer in the Laundry.

Daniel told me last week that when he started dealing 30 years ago everybody specialised. Oak furniture, Georgian furniture, glassware or paintings... most dealers had their own corner. There were large numbers of collectors in all fields, and he felt the general dealers who mixed styles and periods were rather sniffed at.

The dealer started with 16th and 17th century oak and Continental furniture but soon broadened his stock to include sculpture and textiles of the same period.

During buying trips to Italy in the 1970s, Daniel was much impressed by the stylish way Florentine dealers would mix and match. Roman statues were positioned alongside chrome coffee tables, leather sofas with Renaissance desks and so on.

At that time, the English trade (and even more so the buying public) seemed unready to embrace such elan but now, as Daniel puts it, “antiques have become an interior design-led business” and the time is definitely right.

Daniel, like many other dealers in the area, left his shop in Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, three years ago, but his new home is tailor-made for his mode of dealing.

“Today people still want to buy good-quality objects but they are no longer restricted by how old they are or where they come from,” he says. “What it looks like is what matters to contemporary customers and my gallery will reflect a mixture of styles and periods.”

After 30 years, it seems the public’s taste has caught up with Mr Mankowitz’s.