Turning a passion into a profession
John Benjamin has appeared on the BBC hit show Antiques Roadshow for 25 years valuing jewellery. He tells Rebecca Fox that jewellery brings out all sorts of emotions in people.
IF someone turns up at his Dunedin talk with an early 20thcentury Cartier brooch or bracelet, John Benjamin will be a very happy man.
‘‘That would be fabulous; I’d love to see something like that.’’
Benjamin is a British antique jewellery valuer, author, historian and lecturer, who is travelling the country this month with the Decorative and Fine Arts Societies to give talks about his work and his specialist interest — 16thcentury jewellery.
‘‘It is very rare.’’
Leaving school with few qualifications and little direction but an interest in antiques, galleries and art museums, Benjamin got his first job at Cameo Corner, an oldfashioned antiques shop in London known for its stock of ancient, Renaissance, 18th and 19th century jewellery, only after his father approached them asking if they had a job for his son.
During the interview he was shown a tray of cameo brooches.
‘‘I had a lot of interest in the arts and classics. I looked at all these cameos and recognised what all the subjects were — Hercules, Venus, Jupiter — all these different classical mythological figures. I could describe them all and identify them all. She said ‘OK young man we’ll give you the job’.’’
It was there that his passion for jewellery developed and he qualified in gemmology.
‘‘I took the exam and did very, very well. I was a square peg in a square hole. I really knew it was the right subject for me to be doing.’’
He went on to get the Gemmological Association’s Diamond Diploma with distinction and qualified as a Fellow of the Gemmological Association.
‘‘There is something eternal about jewellery. I’ve always been interested in the romance of gemstones. I love gems because of their talismanic purpose. In the 16th century they wore garnets against their skin, as apparently they thought invisible vapours would pour out which would have directly benefit the lungs and livers — and stop you having nightmares.’’
Benjamin then joined Phillips Fine Art Auctioneers in Bond St, London, as a cataloguer and valuer. He stayed for 23 years, ultimately becoming international director of jewellery with responsibility for the sale programmes in London and Geneva.