Peter Arney
has been a Consultant for Matthew Barton and for Olympia Auctions since 2012 and, in 2022, became the head of Valuations and House Visits.
Beginning his career at Sotheby’s as a junior book cataloguer, Peter changed to the then Oriental and European ceramics department at Bonham’s, eventually as head of department.
From 1981, Peter was for fifteen years Head of Sotheby’s European Ceramics Department. During that time, he was responsible for the British Rail Pension Fund maiolica sale, and the sale catalogues he produced for both that and for the superb Rous Lench collection of English ceramics are still highly regarded as reference works.
In 1997 Peter was made Managing Director of Sotheby’s Paris salesroom, and two years later, he became Managing Director of all Sotheby’s European salerooms.
In 2003 he left Sotheby’s to run his own valuations company, specialising in his other great interest, vintage motor cars.
For twenty years until its recent successful buyout, he was also Chairman of the Trustees of Sotheby’s Pension Fund.
He has a wife and six children, and lives, as his secretary once said, ‘somewhere absurd’.
