Team

Daniel Crouch

Daniel has worked as a bookseller since the age of sixteen; first at Sanders of Oxford on weekends and holidays whilst at school and university, before starting full-time in 1997 and becoming general manager in 1998. Subsequent to this, he left to work as a business developer in the book department at Bonham’s auction house in 1999. In 2002 he was invited to set up a map and atlas department at Bernard Shapero Rare Books in London.

Daniel has given numerous lectures on maps and atlases, including talks at the Library of Congress, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Fine Art Museum, Houston.

In the summer of 2010, with the support of a group of their customers, Daniel together with Nick Trimming started Daniel Crouch Rare Books. Daniel still lives in Oxford with his wife, Jen, and two young daughters.

Nick Trimming

Nick studied classical civilization and archaeology at King’s College, London. He started work as a porter at Bonham’s in 2000, and was appointed saleroom manager in their Knightsbridge rooms in 2002. He joined Daniel at Shapero in 2003 and, in the summer of 2010, with the support of a group of their customers, they started their own business. Nick lives in Hampshire with his wife Clare, and young son and daughter.

Kate Hunter

Kate is the senior specialist at our New York office.

Kate was born in Perth, Western Australia, where she grew up surrounded by books. Her family have been book collectors for generations and her mother Penny Bannister has been an antiquarian bookseller there for nearly 50 years.

Kate began her bookselling career in England at Cavendish Rare Books, and would later work for Maggs Bros., and begin her own business in 1994. In 2004, she moved with her family to New York, where she worked for Christie’s, and later on Graham Arader.

Kate has extensive experience in appraising material for permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, for both Insurance, and Fair Market Value purposes. She has conducted appraisals, on both a small and large scale, on behalf of private, public and educational foundations; for booksellers and individuals. She is a Certified Member of the Appraiser’s Association of America.

Ellida Minelli

Ellida grew up in Venice and moved to the UK to study History of Art & Arts Management before completing an MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art focusing on Titian and 16th century Venice. She joined us in 2023 after working in the art world for a decade, specialising in old master paintings. Ellida is responsible for the smooth running of the gallery, including fairs and exhibitions, sales and logistics. Honouring her maritime heritage, she has a particular interest in early portolans and maps of the Serenissima. She is also fascinated by maps and plans of the river Thames and East London’s historical working docks: they bear witness to the constant metamorphosis of London in the same way the river Thames changes its character as it ebbs and flows.

Ivone Chao

Ivone grew up in Sāo Paulo, Brazil, and moved to London to study a BA in Interior and Spatial Design and PgDip Design for Visual Communication at the University of the Arts London. She joined us in 2011, and is responsible for all the visual communication of the gallery, including catalogues, videos, the website and social media. She speaks Portuguese, Cantonese, and some Mandarin and Spanish.

Iona Fielding

Born in Scotland but raised in Buckinghamshire, Iona studied Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh (MA), and Philosophical Theology at Oriel College, Oxford (MPhil), where she was also a committee member of the Oxford Bibliophile Society.

Iona began her bookselling life working in a bookshop and bindery in Vancouver, before joining Daniel Crouch Rare Books in 2023.

Her day-to-day life at the gallery is a mixture of front of house and cataloguing. Iona also oversees our social media accounts, and marketing.

In her spare time, you can find Iona wandering through rare book fairs adding to her collection of pre-1700 French medical books.