Nicholas Dawes

Pottery & Porcelain, Decorative Arts and Glass

Posted: 5.15.09

Nicholas M. Dawes is a consultant for Heritage Auctions. He has over 35 years experience as an international antiques dealer, auction director, writer, lecturer, and charity auctioneer. He was educated in England and began his career there in the late 1960s before moving to the United States in 1979.

A seasoned generalist, Mr. Dawes has several areas of specialty and is considered this country's leading authority on works by René Lalique. His published books have sold over 100,000 copies, and include Lalique Glass, a standard work published by Crown in 1986, Majolica, a treatise on Victorian Majolica (1989), and, with Judith Miller, Art Deco, a comprehensive guide published in 2005. Mr. Dawes is a former specialist and auctioneer with Phillips, where he headed the European Ceramics, Asian and 20th century departments in the 1980s, and former vice president and auctioneer with Sotheby's, where he had special responsibilities for appraising the estate of Elisabeth Whitney in the 1990s.

Mr. Dawes is a frequent lecturer on a wide variety of topics and has been a faculty member of Parsons School of Design in New York since 1983, where he teaches American and European history and luxury marketing courses. In 1989, he curated the popular exhibition "Lalique: A Century of Glass for a Modern World," which toured several U.S. museums over the course of three years. He has been an expert appraiser for ANTIQUES ROADSHOW since the first season.