Putting your name on the map

What a year this has been for antiquarian books and maps specialist Daniel Crouch. Just last September he made his debut as an independent dealer at the Haughtons’ New York fair, but I was really surprised to see him sharing a stand with Antiquariaat FORUM, the Dutch book and print dealers, in the TEFAF Paper section at Maastricht.

A stand at Maastricht is one of the pinnacles of a dealer’s career so after just six months and at the ripe young age of 36, how could Daniel have made it to the world’s top fair? Well, actually he is no stranger to TEFAF since he told me he already knew the event well after nine years manning the stand of his previous employer Bernard Shapero.

Regarding age, he made a good point when he told me: “If you look around a lot of these exhibitors are over 60, so some younger dealers are very welcome”.

Fresh from his return, Daniel also recently paid a treble-estimate £300,000 for a pair of sky charts by Albert Durer at Sotheby’s in London on March 30.