Thomas Agnew (1794&ndash1871) was the founder of the English firm of art dealers andprint publishers, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd. Based originally in Manchester, his firmbecame the most successful of all art dealers in nineteenth-century Britain, one thatstill flourishes in London today. Focusing on the case of Thomas Agnew and his sonWilliam, the purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of professional artdealing in nineteenth-century England and to locate this practice within the contextsof middle-class identity formation and conspicuous consumption. Through a detailedexamination of Agnew&rsquos practices and dealings, the paper seeks to address the roleplayed by art dealers in fashioning art patronage and collecting as a distinct discoursein this pivotal period in the cultural history of England |