Philip Jonathan Clifford Mould (born March 1960) is an English

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

, London gallery owner, art historian, writer and broadcaster. He has made a number of major art discoveries, including works of

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (; 14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists o ...

Anthony Van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of ...

and

Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English people, English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was a ...

. Mould is the author of two books on art discovery and is widely consulted by the media on the subject. He co-presents on BBC television, ''

Fake or Fortune? ''Fake or Fortune?'' is a BBC One documentary television series which examines the provenance and attribution of notable artworks. Since the first series aired in 2011, ''Fake or Fortune?'' has drawn audiences of up to 5 million viewers in t ...

'', an investigative art history programme, with journalist and broadcaster

Fiona Bruce Fiona Elizabeth Bruce (born 25 April 1964) is a British journalist, newsreader and television presenter. She joined the BBC as a researcher for their current affairs programme ''Panorama'' in 1989, and became the first female newsreader on ' ...

Early life and education

Mould was born in Wirral,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

and educated at Kingsmead School, Hoylake, at

Worth School Worth School is a Private schools in the United Kingdom, private co-educational Roman Catholic boarding school, boarding and day school, day school for pupils from 11 to 18 years of age near Worth, West Sussex, Worth, West Sussex, England. Unti ...

and at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...

, from which he graduated with a BA in History of Art in 1981. Mould's father owned a printing factory in Liverpool and his family was based in the

Wirral Peninsula The Wirral Peninsula (), known locally as the Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about long and wide, and is bounded by the Dee Estuary to the west, the Mersey Estuary to the east, and Liverpo ...

. Mould made friends with the owner of a local antiques shop, who taught him to read hallmarks on silver when he was just 11 or 12 years old, and by the age of 14 he was dealing in antique silver.

Career

Mould began art dealing in his early teens and has since established an art dealership specialising in British art, a subject on which he is internationally consulted. He has sold works to public institutions such as

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

(New York),

National Portrait Gallery (London) The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world th ...

Museum of Fine Arts Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 work ...

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...

The Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington and Arabella Huntington in San Marino, California, United Stat ...

(California), and the

Royal Albert Memorial Museum Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) is a museum and art gallery in Exeter, Devon, the largest in the city. It holds significant and diverse collections in areas such as zoology, anthropology, fine art, local and foreign archaeolog ...

. Mould has worked as a valuer for the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

and the Government's Acceptance in Lieu scheme. Between 1988 and 2010 he acted as honorary art adviser to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

and the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

. He is president of the charity Kids in Museums, president and ex-chairman of Plantlife International, a patron of Fight for Sight and Action for ME. He was elected as a fellow of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

in 2012. Mould is also a trustee of Benton End, the former home of artist

Cedric Morris Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet (11 December 1889 – 8 February 1982) was a British artist, Visual arts education, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is be ...

and Arthur Lett-Haines, who ran the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in the house. Mould is a regular broadcaster, reviewer and writer for the national press. His television work includes writing and presenting the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

series ''Changing Faces,'' and featuring as an expert on the ''

Antiques Roadshow ''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people ( ...

.''. In 2011, he began co-hosting the television programme ''

'' with Fiona Bruce. ''Fake or Fortune?'' has regularly drawn an audience of 5 million and in 2016 it won Best Factual Programme at the RTS West of England Awards. He has authored two critically acclaimed books on art discovery. In recognition of his art world expertise and contribution to portrait heritage, he was created

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

in the

2005 New Year Honours New Year Honours were granted in the United Kingdom and New Zealand at the start of 2005. Among these in the UK were knighthoods awarded to Mike Tomlinson, the educationalist; Derek Wanless, who led a review of the National Health Service; ...

list. For his achievements in his field, as well as his involvement with numerous charities and broadcasting, Mould received an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

in July 2013 at his former university, the

. In 2019, he received the EVCOM (Event and Visual Communication Association) Fellowship award. The citation stated: "His expertise has shaped our understanding and knowledge of art today, and how we communicate about it". In 2023, Mould received a Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Plymouth University. In January 2014, Mould warned of the increasing prevalence of what he termed "trapping" in which crooked sellers misleadingly hint that fake artworks have genuine provenance, without actually making false descriptions or asserting attributions.

Art discoveries

Mould has made a number of major art discoveries, including some of Thomas Gainsborough's earliest known works, the only known portrait of

Arthur, Prince of Wales Arthur, Prince of Wales (19/20 September 1486 – 2 April 1502), was the eldest son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and an older brother to the future King Henry VIII. He was Duke of Cornwall from birth, and he was crea ...

and lost works by

Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of ...

and

. In January 2021, Mould found a

miniature portrait A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting from Renaissance art, usually executed in gouache, Watercolor painting, watercolor, or Vitreous enamel, enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illumin ...

of French king Henri III by Jean Decourt. Mould described some of the basic concepts for art discoveries, in an article published in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'':

Although
ould Ould is an English surname as well as an element of many Arabic names. In Arabic contexts it is a transliteration of the word wikt:ولد, ولد, meaning "son". Notable people with this surname include: English surname * Edward Ould (1852–190 ...
acknowledged that auctioneers do not have the benefit of cleaning and restoring works, which help to reveal true quality, he added: "As art dealers, we scour daily the world's auction catalogues for paintings that are ... wrongly identified ... In any week, our finds might range from a misidentified Tudor icon to a misattributed 18th-century landscape … but by a strange chance we seem to have hit a seam of Van Dycks."

Personal life

Mould and his wife, Catherine, have a son born in 1997. Since 2002 they have owned Duck End House in Oxfordshire, close to

Chipping Norton Chipping Norton is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Cotswolds in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England, about south-west of Banbury and north-west of Oxford. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 201 ...

. In 2009, false allegations against him of infidelity and financial insolvency were planted in newspapers by a rival art dealer, later disgraced. In August 2014, Mould was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''

'' opposing

Scottish independence Scottish independence (; ) is the idea of Scotland regaining its independence and once again becoming a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom. The term Scottish independence refers to the political movement that is campaignin ...

in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. In October 2015, Mould appeared on BBC's ''

Gardeners' World ''Gardeners' World'' is a long-running British gardening programme, first broadcast on 5 January 1968. The 2024 series is the 55th. Its first series was presented by Ken Burras and came from Oxford Botanical Gardens. Up until 2020 most of its e ...

'', in the garden of his home, discussing his passion for nature and talked of his interest in varieties of rose which would have been grown in the time of

Sir Anthony van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of ...

. He also discussed the work of one of his favourite artists,

, who was also a great

plantsman A plantsman is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable gardener (amateur or professional), nurseryman or nurserywoman. "Plantsman" can refer to a male or female person, though the terms plantswoman, or even plantsperson, are sometimes used. The word is ...

. Mould is a keen collector of Morris's work (for his private collection), and champions modern British artists in general; he cites the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...

amongst his favourites. In April 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Mould started recording a series of short videos he calls ''Art in Isolation'', where the viewer is invited into his home of Duck End and given personal musings on one of his collected artworks. He is president of the wild plant conservation charity ''

Plantlife Plantlife is a wild plant conservation charity. , it manages 24 nature reserves around the United Kingdom. HM King Charles III is patron of the charity. History Plantlife was founded in 1989. Its first president was Professor David Bellamy ...

''.

Bibliography

* , retitled in paperback as... * , retitled for US edition as... * Exhibition 18 April – 22 July 2018

References

External links

* * *
Philip Mould, ''The Art Detective''
at

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

.org
At home in Oxfordshire with the art dealer and broadcaster Philip Mould
at '' House & Garden'', first published 2013 {{DEFAULTSORT:Mould, Philip 1960 births Living people Antiques Roadshow People educated at Worth School Alumni of the University of East Anglia English art dealers Officers of the Order of the British Empire BBC people Fellows of the Linnean Society of London People from the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral English non-fiction writers English art historians