Maurice "Dick" Turpin, antiques dealer
Hyfler/Rosner
Maurice "Dick" Turpin, antiques dealer, was born on
September 5, 1928. He died on March 28, 2005, aged 76.
Colourful and enterprising dealer whose sometimes alarming
presence enlivened the antique furniture trade for half a
century.
DICK TURPIN was the flamboyant doyen of the "brown
furniture" trade, and one of the last of the great postwar
generation of antiques dealers. He was a large and
unforgettable figure, with his massive walrus moustache, the
invariable Harris tweed hat, large, thick glasses and a
surprisingly high-pitched, squeaky, voice.
He was a good friend and a good enemy, a fierce competitor
and fearless buyer in auctions, and, as a fellow dealer put
it, a very decent man "with no veneer at all".
His dealing was instinctual, based on a flood of goods, and
he lived for the deal and the sale. Although he was best
known for 18th-century English furniture, his knowledge was
broad and deep, and he had formidable expertise in such
diverse areas as Renaissance bronzes, French furniture,
Italian glass, firearms, paintings, drawings and porcelain.
Maurice Turpin, always and inevitably known as Dick, was
born in Bow, East London, in 1928, the son of a wholesale
fruiterer and a Jewish mother of Eastern European ancestry.
His father was musical, and took him to the opera and to
concerts at the Albert Hall. He retained a love of music and
ballet throughout his life, and also built up a remarkable
repertoire of often risque rhymes and ditties, which might
come out at any time.
He qualified as an electrical engineer at Dalston College in
East London, and after the war worked, briefly, for the BBC
as an engineer, but he quickly became restless with
corporate life and was drawn to the individuality of the
antiques trade. At one point in these early days he shared a
flat with Peter Sellers, then not well known. Through him he
became friends with Sellers's fellow Goon, Michael Bentine,
and with Eric Sykes.
In 1948 he launched himself as a runner, scouring country
shops and sales for goods to be sold on to London dealers.
Among his competitors at that time was Desmond Thomas, later
known as Bill the Gilder when he had set up a business
regilding mirror frames. Like Thomas, he cultivated a good
relationship with Mallet's of Bond Street.
In the early 1950s he set up shop, first in Old Brompton
Road, moving to Davies Street and in the late 1980s to
Bruton Street, Mayfair, where the business continues. For a
while he occupied a number of mews houses in South
Kensington, one of which served as a workshop.
In partnership with Colin Hart, nephew of the veteran dealer
Moss Harris, he continued to scour the country, in the years
when country sales were far from the genteel occasions they
have become since the exposure of rings, knockouts and
similar practices in the 1970s. Hart had the funds and both
had good eyes, and they remained friends for more than 30
years, attending almost every country house sale of note
together from the 1950s until Hart's death.
Turpin's buccaneering style was well suited to such an
environment. As the gavel fell his voice might ring out with
"Nice bit of brown you've got there" (if he liked a
successful bidder), "Run out of money?" (to a defeated
underbidder), or "Too bad it isn't old" (to those he
disliked). He would hold up an auction with cries of "But
there's no one bidding against me", which might or might not
have been the case, and at the height of the ringing scandal
he called out to a very eminent Bond Street dealer who had
just bought the star lot at Sotheby's: "So who are you going
to knock it out to?"
Ever restless and energetic, Turpin not only bought on the
Continent, but was one of the first English dealers to make
regular buying trips to the United States, travelling up and
down the East Coast and to California. Wherever he went, he
did the entire trade, both shops and auctions. Once he
walked the streets of Manhattan from river to river,
starting at Wall Street and working all the way up to
Harlem. It took him a week, but he returned to London with a
full shipment.
His wife Dora, always known as Dolly, died in 1988, and
thereafter Jackie Mann became his constant companion and ran
the shop for him. Together they attended every fair in
London as well as most auctions, and they were rarely seen
apart.
Initially intimidating, but immensely kind to those he
liked, Turpin could make life very difficult for anyone he
thought was taking advantage of him, but he was always ready
to try it on himself. On one occasion he sold a fellow
dealer an 18th-century silver table which had only three
sides to the gallery around the top. The dealer asked: "What
happened to the fourth side?" "What fourth side? It never
had one," he declared. However, once it was restored, he
happily admitted that it looked much better with the
regulation number. Enjoying his own nickname, he also had
his names -often unprintable -for most of the people with
whom he came in contact. Until his last few months he
enjoyed good food and wines as well as antiques and friends.
He died from an infection contracted in hospital after a hip
operation.
He leaves a stepson and stepdaughter and his companion
Jackie Mann, who continues to run the business.