AGNEW & SONS GALLERY
On 15 January 1801, a Manchester partnership between, Vittore Zanetti (c1846-1855), Vincent Zanetti and John Fiorino, as dealers in pictures, was dissolved by mutual consent when Vittore and Vincent went their separate ways with Vincent Zanetti, a looking-glass maker at 5 Wright's Court and Vittore, a carver and print seller at 55 Dale Street, Manchester. In 1810 Vittore took Thomas Agnew (1794-1871), as an apprentice and on 1 August 1817 Thomas Agnew became a partner in the business as carvers, gilders, looking glass and picture frame manufacturers now at 94 Market Street Lane, Manchester. In 1828 Vittore Zanetti retires when, with Vittore's son Joseph (1808-1843), a junior partner, the firm becomes Agnew & Zanetti at Exchange Street, Manchester, picture dealers, print sellers, picture frame makers and publishers. In 1835, Joseph Zanetti leaves the business and opens as a carver, guilder and print seller at 16 St Ann's Street, Manchester but died in 1843. After successfully completing apprenticeships with their father, William (1825–1910) and Thomas Agnew (1827–1883) became partners in the firm when it becomes Thomas Agnew & Sons. Vittore Zanetti returned to Italy and died at his residence Isola Superiore, Largo Maggiore, on 13 November 1855 when 'nearly 90 years of age'. Thomas Agnew retired in 1861, the firm had opened its London gallery in 1860, where it soon established itself as a leading art dealership in Mayfair with William Agnew, who was later knighted, becoming the guiding force of the firm. The company occupied its purpose-built Bond Street premises from 1877 and has been involved in placing masterpieces in major collections and museums around the world, and by the 20th century it had established itself as one of the world’s leading international commercial art galleries, with a range of pictures covering Old Master paintings, British paintings, Master prints, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art and Contemporary British paintings. The gallery has an almost unrivalled British record of having sold some of the world's greatest masterpieces. These include Velázquez’s 'Rokeby Venus' now in the collection of the National Gallery and Rembrandt's 'Self Portrait' now in Washington’s National Gallery. In 2008 it relocated to nearby Albemarle Street close to the Royal Academy and concentrated on more contemporary art. Agnew's closed in 2013 and the brand name was sold privately and the gallery is now run by Lord Anthony Crichton-Stuart, a former head of Christie's Old Master paintings department, New York who successfully built upon the gallery’s legacy of acquiring and presenting great works art to museums and private collectors, working from their townhouse gallery in St James’s Place, with a yearly calendar of exhibitions and events. Suffolk artists who exhibited at Agnew's Gallery include Frederick George Cotman, Arabella Crum-Ewing, Cecil Arthur Hunt, Finlay Mackinnon, David Muirhead, Sarah Natasha Raphael, Henry George Rushbury, Charles John Watson, Josiah Wood Whymper and William Powell Wilkins.