Charles Truman


Charles Henry Truman, FSA, was an art historian and a leading authority on gold boxes.

Biography

Early years

Born at Stratton Audley in Oxfordshire, "Charlie", as he was widely known in the art world, was the son of Edward Kenneth Truman and Dorothy Mary Truman. His father was a solicitor as was his father before him.
He attended Marlborough College and then after a summer course at Indiana University embarked upon a degree in law at the University of Kent.

Career

Although expected to follow in his father's footsteps, Truman chose to forge a very different career in the art world. He soon abandoned his studies at Kent and thanks to an inheritance from his maternal grandfather, was able to enrol for an internship in the Department of Furniture and Woodwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1969. In 1971, he transferred to the Department of Metalwork. He was subsequently appointed Assistant Keeper in the Department of Ceramics in 1977.
In 1984, he was headhunted by Christie's to run the firm's London Silver Department, together with the Russian Department and the Department of Objects of Vertu. He was appointed a director of Christie's, and of Christie's Education the following year. Amongst the great pieces which passed through his hands was the Portland Gold Font, 1797–8, from the workshop of Paul Storr, now in the British Museum.
In 1991 he moved to run the Antiques Department at Asprey before establishing himself as an independent dealer. One very pivotal moment in his career while at Asprey's was his negotiating the sale of the silver frames of three crowns once worn by British sovereigns. They are now on display at the Tower of London.
With the antique dealer Lucy Burniston he set up the firm of C. & L. Burman Ltd in 2000 as an antique dealership and art consultancy. Until its dissolution in 2010, the firm exhibited at the Grosvenor House, Olympia and BADA fairs in London, and at antiques fairs in New York and Palm Beach.
At the time of his death Truman was working as an independent dealer and consultant for works of art, particularly in silver and gold, advising private collectors, museums and heritage groups. His special areas of expertise were gold boxes, Renaissance jewellery, French porcelain and also glass,
Truman was formerly chairman of the British Antique Dealers' Association, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company, a former member of the Antique Plate Committee of the Goldsmiths' Company, a past chairman of the Silver Society, and a member of the French Porcelain Society, the Glass Circle, the Furniture History Society and the Society of Jewellery Historians.

Private life

He married Laura Green in 1984.

Honours

Charles Truman was appointed a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths.

Writings

His contribution to the literature of decorative art history was substantial. He published on precious metalwork from early on in his career, acknowledging his debt of gratitude to the pioneering works of Kenneth Snowman on Fabergé and on gold boxes. By the age of twenty-six Truman himself was already becoming an authority on gold boxes, contributing significantly to the book The James A. de Rothschild Collection: Gold Boxes and Miniatures.
His article "Reinhold Vasters, The Last of the Goldsmiths", published in Connoisseur in March 1979, dealing with fake Renaissance jewellery and works of art by the Aachen maker, reflected an important area of concern in his work as scholar and later as dealer. With Anna Somers Cocks, he co-authored The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Renaissance Jewellery, Gold Boxes and Objets de Vertu. The first volume of his book The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes, was published in 1991 by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His edition of The Sotheby's Concise Encyclopaedia of Silver came out soon after in 1993. The second volume of The Gilbert Collection of Gold Boxes was published in London in 1999, the year before the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection as a whole went on display at Somerset House in London. His catalogue of the Renaissance jewellery in the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, was published in 2012, and his catalogue raisonné of the gold boxes at the Wallace Collection, London, in 2013.

Works of art history

Books by Charles Truman, or works to which he contributed


1972-3

1975
1977
1981
1982
1984
1989
1991
1992
1993
1999
2005
2009
2012
2013