He didn’t show. So I worked, as normal, through the day and put him from my mind. It was easy, surrounded by so many fascinating pieces, and I was absorbed for the entire day.So the days passed. He didn’t show either for breakfast or for dinner for almost a week. The weather had turned hot and humid but still I worked.I had finished the second cabinet and opened the third. And as usual I was struck by the quality of the pieces. Paul had been a discerning buyer. It is all too easy to buy the wrong piece of Staffordshire – commonplace, poorly moulded, downright fakes or pieces with bad or too significant restoration. In general Paul Wernier-King had avoided these pitfalls and my respect for him as a collector grew. But then – he had had unlimited funds. It would have been tempting for him to have simply amassed quantity ignoring quality but he had, what is fondly and respectfully called in the trade, ‘an eye’ for a piece and I recognised this. The first figure I took from the third cabinet was a good example of this.
