A precious collection

When thinking about collectors of antiques and old pieces of art, the picture of people of a vintage age – probably sitting around a wooden table in a garden discussing their latest additions to their collections while drinking tea from Victorian ceramic cups – may come to mind. But Daniel Azzopardi, who is all of 30 years old, began his collection of antiques at the young age of 23. Azzopardi gives me a tour of his collection of antiques and paintings with a rare kind of youthful passion. Azzopardi inherited his passion from his father, who is a silversmith – this relationship is reflected in the collection itself as a large part of it is antique silverware. But Azzopardi’s interest in antiques is eclectic and to date Azzopardi has managed to collect anything of high value from paintings to clocks. The first object Azzopardi shows me is a silver model on a base of brass depicting the baptism of Christ: this is a Biblical scene made popular by a painting of Andrea del Verrocchio and his pupil, Leonardo da Vinci in 1475. Azzopardi claims that his model is a copy of a sculpture by Alessandro Algardi, one of the greatest baroque Italian sculptors of the 17th century. In Italian this...