Welcome to M. J. Carlile Ltd. Antiques & Fine Art Appraisals

About Us

Janet Carlile is an independent, accredited antiques valuer and appraiser. She has thirty years of experience appraising, inventorying and advising on fine art and antiques for private, corporate and institutional clients in North America and Europe. Her particular expertise is in Europe and Canadian fine art, furniture and decorative arts and she is regularly consulted by an international auction house on Canadian silver and furniture. Janet is also well known as a university lecturer, author, television personality and public speaker.

Janet has been retained by Canada's top museums, including the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Redpath Museum as well as public institutions that hold or manage collections of antiques or significant cultural assets, such as Rideau Hall, the House of Commons, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the University of Alberta and the Court of Appeal. Her clients also include insurance companies, embassies, private sector corporations and individual collectors.

Janet's qualifications include a first degree in Canadian History from the University of Waterloo in Canada and a Master's Degree in Modern Social History from Lancaster University in England. She completed Sotheby's Decorative Arts which included working in appraisals and research at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

She is an accredited member of the Canadian Professional Appraisers/Canadian Association of Personal Property Appraisers and her client reports conform to the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) of The Appraisal Foundation.

Through her network of contracts with specialists and auction houses across North America and Europe, Janet maintains a current knowledge of values and trends - essential in a market which is affected greatly by demand from foreign buyers. Janet is not, however, a dealer and considers it a conflict of interest to purchase directly from her clients.

In addition to her appraisal work, Janet has been a lecturer at Lancaster University on the subject of artefacts and implements relating to Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian social history, and she has lectured about Canadian antiques at the University of Toronto, Centennial College and Erindale College. She has written about antiques and fine art for a variety of publications including Canadian House and Home magazine (Antiques at Home) and appeared regularly on radio and television. In Britain, she wrote and hosted a long-running BBC Radio program called A-Z of Antiques, while in Canada she may be best known for her multiple tours with the very successful Canadian Antiques Roadshow. Most recently she was invited to give a keynote address on Canadian Furniture design during the British Colonial Period at the New Zealand Furniture History Symposium in Invercargill