MY STORY & PHILOSOPHY
Amy Lim Art & Antiques is owned and managed by Dr Amy Lim. I am an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. After completing my PhD at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Tate, I decided to share my passion for art and for the stories that historic art and antiques can tell us.
Drawing on my academic expertise, I offer affordable works of historic art that are researched and catalogued with a depth usually only found at the highest levels of the art market.
Every work of art has the potential to tell a story: about the people who made, bought and owned it, and the society in which they lived. The history of each of the artworks I offer for sale can be found on its product page, in a section titled 'What's the Story?'. When you purchase an artwork you will receive a printed copy of its story to keep. I hope that knowing more about it will enhance the pleasure of ownership.
ABOUT ME
I am a historian by training. I hold an MA in History from the University of Cambridge, an MSt in Literature and Arts and DPhil in History from the University of Oxford. My doctoral thesis, 'Art in Aristocracy in late Stuart England', researched aristocratic art patronage in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, taking in some of England's best-loved country houses, including Chatsworth, Petworth and Burghley. Alongside running 'Amy Lim Art & Antiques', I continue to research and publish as an academic art historian. My articles and essays have appeared in Apollo, The Georgian Group Journal, Art & the Country House, ed. Martin Postle (Paul Mellon Centre, 2020), Furniture History, First World War Studies and Burlington. I've also written for exhibition catalogues, including British Baroque: Power and Illusion, ed. Tabitha Barber (Tate Publishing, 2020) and Now You See Us: /women Artists in Britain 1520-1920, ed. Tabitha Barber (Tate Publishing, 2024).
I am Curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, an important and diverse collection of fine and decorative arts that is privately run within a National Trust country house. I am also a freelance researcher and curator. Recent projects have included researching Victorian women artists for the exhibition Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain, 1520-1920, (Tate Britain, 2024), and compiling an online catalogue of the works of twentieth century English landscape painter Gilbert Spencer RA. Previously I worked on the exhibition 'British Baroque: Power and Illusion' (Tate Britain, 2020), and in 2021 was a Junior Teaching Fellow at the Ashmolean Museum. I am a volunteer curator at the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, where I curated 'Mind and Mortality: Stanley Spencer's Final Portraits' (2021) and 'Most Loved Works in the Stanley Spencer Gallery' (November 2022-March 2023). I am also co-chair of the Events Committee of the Furniture History Society.
I am an accredited lecturer for the Arts Society, and a tutor at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. I have also lectured for the Royal Academy of Arts, the National Trust and the Furniture History Society.
I also undertake research and cataloguing for private and institutional clients. If you have an artwork that you would like researching, or a project that you would like to discuss, please contact me using the form below.
