About Stuart Budd

Stuart Budd was born into the antiques trade. His earliest memories are of Saturday mornings on Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill, where his father, John Budd, ran a stall dealing in Georgian silver and decorative objects. From the age of eight, Stuart was there beside him — learning to spot a genuine piece of English hallmarked silver from a forgery, understanding why the patina on a piece of oak furniture tells you more than any receipt ever could, and developing the instinct for quality that can only be built through years of handling the real thing.

“My father always said that the market teaches you what no book can,” Stuart recalls. “You see hundreds of pieces every weekend. You handle them, you ask questions, you make mistakes — and gradually you begin to see. Not just what something is, but what it means.”

Through his teenage years and into adulthood, Stuart divided his time between the Portobello stall and the salerooms of London — Christie’s, Bonhams, the smaller auction houses in the West Country and the Midlands where extraordinary things would occasionally appear without fanfare. He developed particular passions for Georgian furniture, early English ceramics, and the silversmithing of the 18th century, though his taste was never narrowly defined.

Over the course of five decades, the collection Stuart has assembled is wide-ranging and deeply personal. It spans three centuries of English and Continental craftsmanship, from an early 18th-century English delftware charger that he bought for almost nothing at a provincial auction in his twenties, to an exceptional pair of Art Deco platinum and diamond bracelets acquired just a few years ago. Every piece has been chosen for the same reasons: quality, originality, condition, and the ineffable sense that a genuinely fine thing communicates to anyone who takes the time to look closely.

Now, for the first time, Stuart is offering his collection for sale. Having spent a lifetime acquiring, he has decided it is time to share these pieces with those who will love and appreciate them as much as he has.

“I am not a shop,” he is quick to point out. “I see people by appointment, individually, so I can spend proper time with them. Antiques shouldn’t be rushed. If you are genuinely interested in something, I want to tell you everything I know about it.”

Stuart is based in London and the surrounding area, and receives visitors by private appointment at a location disclosed on enquiry.