Lizzie Collins tells how art helped fulfil her dream of a life in the country

I am a valuer and auctioneer of paintings, prints and sculpture for Bonhams auctioneers.

Each working day is different. I meet clients in Oxford and the surrounding area and advise on the value of the art in their collection. We may meet in the office here, at their home or at one of our valuation days across the region. The valuation may be for a private client or an institution.

Although I am frequently emailed with images and valuation enquiries I often do not know exactly what it is that I will see until it is presented to me.

Depending on the value of the work and where the market is, we will sell the work here at Bonhams Oxford, otherwise it will go to London or elsewhere – Edinburgh, New York, Hong Kong or Sydney for example.

I work in Oxford but the network I have access to is international, and that is what makes my work unique, as there is no other international auction house in the UK with a regional saleroom.

People often do not know the value of the work/s in their collection, and very occasionally we do ‘find’ works that are more valuable than expectation. However, most of the time the reverse is the case.

Managing expectations and letting people down gently is a skill I learnt early on.

The most expensive find that I have been involved in was the Velászquez, which was unearthed a couple of years ago at Bonhams Oxford and went on to sell for just shy of £3m in our London saleroom.

The four main motivating factors for selling at auction are divorce, death, financial necessity and rationalisation. For these purposes we will conduct formal market, probate and insurance valuations alongside sale valuations.

I came to work at Bonhams Oxford after spending 10 years in the London art world working for both Bonhams and before that Christie’s.

I moved to Oxfordshire in 2010 for family reasons and was incredibly lucky to move my role to the office here. As with many of these things my interest in art from an academic point of view started with my History of Art teacher at school, Mrs Hadley. It was she who took me on an academic journey that began with Ernst Gombrich’s Story of Art and organised the most fantastic study trips to Florence, Venice, Padua and Amsterdam.

One of the best exhibitions I remember seeing at this stage of my education was American Art in the 20th Century at the Royal Academy in London, which was a revelation after such immersion in Renaissance Art.

After a gap year, to learn Italian and soak up more art in Florence, I studied History of Art at UCL. It was during this time that I remember seeing the incredible Howard Hodgkin exhibition at the Hayward, and shortly after, the Anish Kapoor in the same gallery.

My love for 20th-century British Art was ignited and my first job in an auction house was to catalogue the 20th-century British Art sales at Christie’s King Street.

After an academic interlude at the Courtauld to study for an MA, I returned to Christie’s South Kensington as a specialist, and after six months in the Drawings and Watercolours and Illustrations department secured a position in the 20th-century British Art department.

It was from here that I jumped ship to Bonhams, attracted by the possibility of working in the country one day. Several years down the line I managed to realise this dream and feel truly lucky to be doing what I love on the doorstep of the amazing city of Oxford.