Essential Guide to Collectibles: A Source Book of Public Collections in Europe and America

Alistair McAlpine has assembled and disassembled more collections in a few decades than most collectors do in a lifetime. Described by Lord Gowrie, former Chairman of Sotheby's and of the Arts Council, as 'having a wonderful eye', he has been a builder, pearl farmer, antiquities dealer, breeder of rare birds, politician, writer and through all these diverse lives a collector in an astonishing range of fields. His collections have ranged from 18th-century garden implements and police truncheons to Roman beads and rare textiles. He is known for his long-running 'World of Interiors' column, and for many years he wrote a monthly piece for The Spectator on the highlights of the auction world Cathy Giangrande read art history and chemistry and later received a degree in archaeological conservation from University College London. As a conservator she has worked at museums in the U.S.A. and Britain, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and, when its home was the Tower of London, the Royal Armouries. Her interest in collections hidden away in store at museums led to a TV series for Discovery Channel, called Unseen Treasures. Combining her scuba diving and conservation skills, she has worked for over twenty years on underwater archaeological sites. Her exploits have taken her to uninhabited islands in the North Aegean and, most recently, off the coast of Israel with Dr. Robert Ballard, conserving artefacts from Phoenician shipwrecks (750BC)McAlpine, Alistair is the author of 'Essential Guide to Collectibles: A Source Book of Public Collections in Europe and America' with ISBN 9780670030323 and ISBN 0670030325.