The hike in demand indicates how high net worth individuals are increasingly buying and investing in fine art, which managing director Tim Sutton describes as an “extremely buoyant” market, despite the state of the wider economy.

The new facility includes the latest technology for storing art, including bar-coding and an online system enabling clients to track their collections.

“Eight years ago we invested £2 million to develop our warehouse, and now we are opening up new space in an adjacent building which will increase capacity by half as much again,” Sutton said. “The extra resource will be accommodating works from collectors and galleries, where we are seeing real business growth.”