No man is an island and nothing was achieved all alone. But I do believe that this was one of the first web sites specialising in paintings for sale and actually the very first gallery of Old Master Paintings to do. No one at the time knew what a web site was, few knew how to do it and many curators and museums expressed open hostility. I had the site put on a disc (CDROM) and sent it round or went to demonstrate it, but it was not really a success at first. Nevertheless we opened the site to the public with a party and a fanfare and Dr Christopher Brown, then of the National Gallery in London, now Director of the Ashmolean Museum Oxford did us the honour of formally inaugurating it in public.
That was in 1995. In so doing we beat Gerald Stiebel of New York City by about a month. He remains a good friend and trusted colleague.
Thanks are due to Keith and Simon at Prudence Cuming Associates. For a very long time they have been our photographers, and we have excellent relations with them, though their boss and founder Pru has long since retired in honour. Her tolerance of my time wasting-questions and their enthusiasm and interest in the project were an immense help. Having taken all the photos, they did all the scanning and discussed many matters that made the idea of a web site into a reality. They still take the 'formal' photos, but digital technology and wonderful scanners mean I do more myself than I might have imagined.
I should like to thank Dr Roberta Cremoncini, who from a standing start and no experience of the internet, typed in the greatest part of all these files and made the 'connections' and got it right and made it work, with hardly a mistake from the beginning. Her accelerating speed was most encouraging. The programmes were more complex then and she has moved on to become Director and chief Curator of The Estorick Foundation.
Thanks are due to Valentine Walsh. I have known her since she was very young indeed and she claims that I was responsible for introducing her to the art world and her career as a conservator. I have no recollection of this and take no responsibility for it but her application of intellect to the problems of conservation is outstanding and she has agreed to write and allow me to publish a series of articles on the care of paintings - this series is now in place - from Care of Paintings.
It is also time to thank Owen Manderfield of VIS . He wrote much of the software for Demon Systems and his unfailing good humour when faced with my opaque sensibilities towards a computer, together with his real knowledge of what goes on inside its strange mind, made the project possible at all. Even so, I must also thank Cliff Stanford, inventor and progenitor and the driving force of Demon Internet our service provider at the time. He it was who introduced me to a computer in the first place, installed our first word-processor so many years ago (it seems); he enthused about the internet long before most of the world had heard of it, and he made his dream a reality beyond the possibility of continuing to sort out my little problems. But he always felt that I was the only one of his clients and friends for whom the internet would have no use. I hope that in that single instance he was wrong.
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