About Us
The members of our team have complementary interests and skills. Here is some information about what they do for Antiquaria llc, their backgrounds and related interests.
Kate Duvall
runs the business in Forest Grove, Oregon, and is the point of contact for clients and suppliers. Her longstanding interest in history, antiques and decorative detail inspired her to create Antiquaria llc.
She was brought up in a family whose members have collected antiques for several generations. Her mother was a gifted and intuitive collector who acquired many fine quality and interesting pieces during her lifetime. Kate accompanied her mother on her buying trips from a very early age and, in fact, her very earliest memory is attendance at an antique furniture auction at the age of two.
Prior to moving to the USA, Kate worked in the UK property market for many years. This gave her extensive exposure to different decorative styles and period details, in both residential and commercial properties, which expanded her knowledge was a very rewarding part of her job.
An example of one of her historic house assignments (in the 1990s) was the appraisal of the value of Benjamin Franklin’s London home, in Craven Street, as part of a preliminary exercise to assess the viability of turning it into a museum. The house was built in 1730, Franklin lived there from 1757 until 1775 and, during that time, it was the United States’ first de facto embassy. The Benjamin Franklin House museum project was completed at the beginning of 2006 and is now open to the public. If you are interested in this project, follow this link to the museum web-site:
Richard Duvall
Kate’s husband, is a co-founder of the business. He has a long established career in sales and marketing, and advises Antiquaria llc in those fields. He also provides the company with business management skills and technical support.
Richard is one of our guides on American taste when we select our stock. His favorite period for furniture is the 1930s, especially items made of oak. He has always enjoyed working with wood and, since meeting Kate and her family, he has become interested in the science and application of traditional furniture finishes.
He has always been interested in history and culture, especially ancient civilizations. His favorite destination in the UK is the British Museum, which is one of the most respected museums in the world. If you would like to know more about the British Museum and its world famous collections, follow this link:
Mike Prendergrast
is our UK representative. He is responsible for acquiring antiques and period pieces for Antiquaria LLC, research and preparation of background material, and shipping to the USA.
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Having been deeply interested in antiques for many years, Mike made a career change some years ago and studied at England’s premier university for furniture restoration, (Buckingham Chilterns University College), where he gained a BA and then an MA in Conservation and Restoration. He now runs his own business dealing with the conservation of a wide range of furniture and wood based objects.Mike takes an ethical approach to restoration and is keen to conserve original finishes and features wherever possible, to retain the maximum historical information and context of the object. He now lectures regularly at university level on a number of topics. |
He highly recommends two museums in London to students of the design and history of furniture: the Geffrye Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum (the V & A). The Geffrye Museum is an outstanding furniture museum with a display room for each period from 1600 to contemporary times. The V & A has world-renowned collections and displays on the decorative arts, furniture and fashion. Both have excellent web sites that are well worth visiting:
www.geffrye-museum.com • www.vam.ac
Lucy Prendergrast
assists Antiquaria LLC by locating and identifying suitable antiques and period pieces for the business. She has a BA in interior design and is also a trained gilder. She works with Mike, her husband, on the restoration of pieces that have gilded, painted or other decorative finishes.
Her love of art history developed when she was a teenager, and she has an especial interest in the Arts & Crafts movement. She is an admirer of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 – 1928), a Scottish architect, designer and artist, who was a prominent exponent of both the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau in Britain. He came to her attention when she was at high school in Northampton, UK, because the school owned 78 Derngate, a house that he remodeled in 1916-17. Charles Rennie Mackintosh produced some very interesting and distinctive work, and if you would like to know more about him, look at the web-site that is dedicated to his life and work: