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NEW BOOK: A Touch of Gold
“In this dazzling memoir revealing his encounters with royal and celebrity clients including the Queen Mother, Sir Elton John, Dame Joanna Lumley and Frank Sinatra, Antiques Roadshow presenter and jewellery expert Geoffrey Munn reflects on his stellar career, having spent more than five decades bejewelling some of the biggest names in the world.”
“His is a warm, charming page turner of an autobiography: from start to finish full of fascinating characters, incredible and amusing anecdotes, self-effacing humour and wry asides, beautifully detailed observations and, of course, stuffed with great nuggets of jewellery and art history.”
About Geoffrey Munn
Geoffrey Munn is a jewellery specialist, historian and writer but is probably best known as a television presenter on the BBC Antiques Roadshow. His first and only permanent position has been with the court jewellers Wartski which he joined at 19. It is from this old established firm that his expertise in art and antiques is derived and his foremost specialty is nineteenth century jewellery and especially the work of the famous Russian goldsmith Carl Fabergé. Geoffrey has written a history of his hometown, Southwold-An Earthly Paradise and through his researches for this book he was able to expand on the history of JMW Turner, Edward Lear and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Geoffrey Munn has made a study of the life and work of the painter Richard Dadd and is a trustee of the Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
Television
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From regular appearances on The Antiques Roadshow to cameos in dramas such as Stephen Poliakoff's Joe's Palace
From a heart-stopping Lord Nelson tie pin to a dazzling unworn piece of 150-year-old jewellery, watch as the expert takes a look at some incredible gems. Filmed in various locations between 1990-2009.
Joe’s Palace by Stephen Poliakoff, BBC TWO
Writing
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Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
COUNTRY LIFE
The influence of a variety of Japanese works of art on animal studies made by Carl Fabergé is discussed by Geoffrey Munn
THE ANTIQUE COLLECTOR
Chapter 2 of the fascinating new book called Decoding the Jewels - Renaissance Jewellery in Scotland. Edited by Anna Groundwater.
NATIONAL MUSEUMS SCOTLAND
This previously intelligent, sensitive and mild-mannered man, found insane at trial, was committed to Bethlem Hospital on 22 August 1844 and transferred to Broadmoor Asylum in 1864. There he remained, confined At Her Majesty's Pleasure, until his death in 1886.
THE BRITISH ART JOURNAL
The interpretation of Dadd's images in any literal sense is usually as futile as it is fascinating. Indeed, much is lost when the spectrum of his delusions is examined in the white light of the real world. Nonetheless this drawing is strewn with clues that seem to invite interpretation.
THE BRITISH ART JOURNAL
Richard Dadd Dadd (1817-1886) and Edmund Yates (1831-1894)
New light on the painter and his press.
BRITISH ART JOURNAL
Jewellery has been described as the highest form of dress and in Philip de László’s portraits rank and status are signalled by both. For men it is uniforms, helmets, orders and medals that say it all but for women haute couture, furs and valuable jewellery reflect their noble, if not their royal station.
MASTER OF ELEGANCE
Geoffrey Munn explores the eternal allure of the rose.
RAVISHING - THE ROSE IN FASHION
A chance glimpse of purple and gold in a crowded cabinet led to an extraordinary discovery by Geoffrey Munn: a lost cache of of pieces by the Russian Imperial jeweller, Carl Fabergé. That was just the start of a mystery, as he explains.
COUNTRY LIFE
This book illuminates the career of a man who participated in a golden age of British creativity. It contains a dazzling array of never-before-seen sketches, designs and photographs from the Grima archives and includes a sparkling preface from the doyen of jewellery experts, TV celebrity Geoffrey Munn. A must-buy publication for art and jewellery lovers alike.
ACC ART BOOKS
During the reign of Elizabeth I, only royalty and the rich could afford to commission the exalted Nicholas Hilliard or Isaac Oliver to paint a prized miniature of themselves in all their jewels and finery. Imbued with symbolism, many of these exquisitely worked – and extremely rare – talismans and love ‘tablets’ have been brought together for a National Portrait Gallery exhibition. It’s all quite divine, writes Geoffrey Munn.
WORLD OF INTERIORS
Princess Margaret was as artistic a soul as her husband. Here’ jewellery expert Geoffrey Munn tells the tale of a piece of Balmoral lichen she had immortalised in gold.
COUNTRY LIFE
Around 180 objects at the Ashmolean Museum reveal how humans have embraced the occult over the past eight centuries.
THE ART NEWSPAPER
Geoffrey has written the foreword to Fabergé: His Masters and Artisans by Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm
UNICORN PUBLISHING GROUP
Coral is a complex marine organism and has a calciferous skeleton. It is sometimes blood red and is vascular in its form. Therefore in Greek legend it was said to be the petrified blood of the Medusa, and subsequently it was even seen as the blood of Christ.
INNER LIVES MAGAZINE
Gemstones hold a very special place in the human psyche. Their allure is hard to define and harder to explain but it seems that it is one of the characteristics that raise humanity above the animal kingdom. Geoffrey examines their mystical allure.
APOLLO, THE INTERNATIONAL ART MAGAZINE
Talisman amulet and magic catalyst, Geoffrey Munn explores the crystal ball from the 7th century to the present day.
INNER LIVES
The artist at the vanguard of gender fluidity. Geoffrey Munn reviews the Brighton exhibition that includes love letters and the artist's final painting, a memento mori ...
THE ART NEWSPAPER
The East Coast town of Southwold brings stories of hidden treasure, smugglers, murderers and on top of it all a famously haunted building in the High Street called Sutherland House, home to Southwold's own witch, Ann Cammell, accused at the height the savage witch trials of the mid 1640s.
INNER LIVES
Jewellery expert Geoffrey Munn claims the true inspiration for some of Faberge's remarkable Imperial Easter Eggs came from folklore, Christian lore and even throwaway greetings cards.
ANTIQUE COLLECTING MAGAZINE
Firmly based on Classical sources the French 18th century style of decoration was considered safe even by the most hesitant of patrons and collectors, explains Geoffrey Munn.
FABERGÉ RESEARCH SITE
In an introduction to the work of the famous Italian goldsmith Giovanni Corvaja the author Geoffrey Munn explores the physical properties of gold and the the deep seated hold it has on the human psyche.
ADRIAN SASSOON
The discovery of an unrecorded drawing provides the means to re-evaluate, in detail, a watch designed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti that has since disappeared.
DECORATIVE ARTS SOCIETY JOURNAL 2011
In the early 1990’s Geoffrey Munn wrote a routine letter of enquiry to His Serene Highness Prince Rainier of Monaco. To his great surprise it resulted in the chance rediscovery of a Fabergé Imperial Egg, thought lost for more than 20 years.
FABERGE RESEARCH SITE
Geoffrey Munn on Victorian masterpieces that are being left to rot.
TIMES NEWSPAPER
A great collector and remarkable personality is remembered with affection by Geoffrey Munn.
THE ANTIQUE COLLECTOR
News
The frames, previously unrecorded, were found by chance in the store-rooms at Brighton Pavilion in 2021 by Geoffrey Munn, a jewellery specialist and historian on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow.
THE TIMES
The Friends of the BADA has given £500 to support the Bethlem Museum of the Mind in the acquisition of a new work. A photograph by Benji Reid, a contemporary surrealist, joins the collection of the Kent institution. It boosts the representation of the black British community at Bethlem.
ANTIQUES TRADE GAZETTE
The jewellery historian Carol Woolton speaks to the author, social historian, jewellery expert and star of TV's Antiques Roadshow, Geoffrey Munn, about one of the most enigmatic and fascinating substances, rock crystal, with its timeless mysteries.
IF JEWELS COULD TALK PODCAST
The Antiques Roadshow star says that he has developed a 'hunter gatherer’s aptitude' for finding jewellery after 30 years on the show.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Joining Tom Jackson to discuss the postcards from their pasts are antiques expert, broadcaster GEOFFREY MUNN (Antiques Roadshow) and writer JOHN GRINDROD. In this episode we discuss the fossils of Malta and relics of our pasts, the lost art of plane-spotting and tragedy foretold in carefree postcards from the start of the twentieth century. Plus sequins and petticoats. Wish you were here?
PODCAST FROM THE PAST
In this episode Dr Laura-Jane Foley meets Geoffrey Munn, a writer, jewellery specialist and presenter on BBC Antiques Roadshow, who recounts an incredible art detective story. Geoffrey shares his forty-year quest to track down a missing one-of-a-kind watch designed by pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 -1882).
MY FAVOURITE WORK OF ART PODCAST
A legend of Mayfair is hanging up his hat this spring—the jewellery expert and Antiques Roadshow contributor Geoffrey Munn is stepping down after more than 45 years at Wartski, the fabled family firm of dealers specialising in works by Carl Fabergé.
THE ART NEWSPAPER
The BBC’s Antiques Roadshow witnessed its third £1m valuation while filming at the Black Country Living Museum in the West Midlands last week.
ANTIQUES TRADE GAZETTE
A guest on the most recent episode of BBC One's Antiques Roadshow was moved to tears on discovering that the family heirloom she had bought along to be assessed by an expert was worth an astonishing £150,000.
THE TELEGRAPH
The British Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA) has appointed Geoffrey Munn of Wartski as Chairman of Friends of the BADA Trust.
ANTIQUES TRADE GAZETTE
Jewellery expert Geoffrey Munn has been a familiar face for many years on television screens as an Antiques Roadshow valuer.
IPSWICH STAR
A beach hut belonging to a television jewellery expert has been tagged by a street artist.
EAST ANGLIAN DAILY TIMES
Enquiries
To contact Geoffrey Munn, via his agent, please complete the form below: