Philip Mould was born on 4 March 1960 in the Wirral, Cheshire. His father owned a printing factory in Liverpool, and the family was based on the Wirral Peninsula; his interest in antiques began in childhood, partly through helping his mother, who used a wheelchair after contracting polio, inspect items in local antiques shops.

He began dealing in antique silver by age 14 and moved into art dealing in his early teens, later building one of Britain’s leading dealerships specialising in British portraiture, with works sold to institutions including the National Portrait Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Mould co-presents BBC One Fake or Fortune? with Fiona Bruce, a show he helped create in 2011 that regularly draws audiences of around 5 million. He has also presented Channel 4’s Changing Faces and appeared as an expert on the BBC’s Antiques Roadtrip.

He lives with his wife, Catherine, who is also a director of his gallery, and share a son, Oliver, born in 1997. The family has owned Duck End House, a 17th-century property in Oxfordshire near Chipping Norton, since 2002, alongside a home in Kensington, London.