Manfredi della Gherardesca is never sure if he’s depressed or inspired by how drastically the art market has changed in the past decade. ‘You collect art, you are. You don’t collect art, nobody knows who you are,’ he says. As the HNW population has grown, the market has become ‘like a huge maze where it’s hard to find the exit’.
That makes knowledge more important than ever. ‘The old saying is that success in business is dictated by whom you know. I think it would be nice if it was also dictated by what you know,’ he says. Luckily for his clients, della Gherardesca, who works as a one-man band, has it all.
He has a master’s in Caravaggio and 17th-century Italian art, and his true lifelong passions are Old Master paintings and European decorative arts.
His latest foray has been into the world of design and interiors. Interiors projects include an 8,500 square foot apartment in New York, an Eaton Square house, a beach house on a Norwegian island, as well as an ancient family castle in Castagneto, a 55,000 square foot historic property which appeared in The World of Interiors magazine.
Whether it’s art or interiors, though, pride in your own taste versus selling out to the market is of vital importance for an adviser, he says.