Experts - Ian Harris

Ian Harris is one of the well-known faces of Jewellery & Silver on the BBC Antiques Roadshow. His association with the BBC started on 'Going for a Song' with Arthur Negus, in which he took part for several years. Ian and his wife Natalie have been part of the Antiques Roadshow since it began, the next series will be its 30th year.
Ian began in the business by joining the family company of N. Bloom & Son in 1953, which at the time was being run by his uncle. They were specialist dealers and restorers of antique silver and Sheffield plate. After a two year interlude successfully working for himself, Ian re-joined the firm in order to run their first Mayfair shop, at the time still only dealing in silver. After a short while, and at Ian’s suggestion, the business expanded into antique jewellery and rapidly acquired a substantial collection.

Over the last 30 years H.Bloom & Son have traded at various prestigious addresses including Bond Street, Conduit Street, and in latter years, the Piccadilly Arcade. Apart from silver and jewellery, Ian has a very varied knowledge and has dealt at various times in carriage clocks, watches and animalier bronzes. His personal interests include the acquisition (by his own admission ‘collecting’ would be too organized a word) modern British pictures, particularly Surrealism, and other oddities. He also collects Octopus objects in all media, Indian bronzes, and anything else that takes his fancy. Natalie, his wife, collects needlework and is also a keen practitioner herself. They now live with a Jack Russell terrier in part of a historic eighteenth century mansion house on the South Coast of England. Ian is a Freeman of the Goldsmiths Company and of the City of London; for many years a dealer-director of LAPADA, the Antique and Art Dealer's Association and a member of the Athenaeum.