Antonio Maria Zanetti
Venetian artist, engraver, art critic, art dealer and connoisseur (1679–1767)
Count Anton[io] Maria Zanetti (1680–1767) was a Venetian artist, engraver, art critic, art dealer and connoisseur. He formed a collection of engraved gems, of which he published a lavish catalogue.
Life
Zanetti spent his early manhood making wise investments in marine insurance, accumulating sufficient capital to support his true vocation, as a writer and artist, and as an art dealer, doing much of his business with the English aristocrats who passed through Venice on the Grand Tour. He acted as paintings agent for Philippe d'Orléans in forming the Orléans collection, Paris, and Joseph Wenzel I, Prince of Liechtenstein, in expanding the Liechtenstein collection, Vienna. Pierre Crozat, being in Venice in 1715, persuaded Zanetti and his protégé Rosalba Carriera to go to Paris. Zanetti also visited London, where he purchased Jan Petersen Zoomer's three large volumes containing 428 Rembrandt etchings in outstanding impressions of the various states.
He formed a collection of engraved gems, both Greco-Roman and modern, of which he published a lavish catalogue, in the form of A.F. Gori's Le gemme antiche di Anton Maria Zanetti (1750), illustrated with eighty plates of engravings from his own drawings. The drawings for the engravings, and many of his intaglios and cameos, are conserved in the Museo Correr, Venice. His prize piece, a black intaglio of Hadrian's favourite, Antinous, which he had pursued for years before acquiring it, was bought by George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough and gained the sobriquet of the "Marlborough gem".
As a printmaker, Zanetti advanced the art of the Chiaroscuro woodcut, producing many prints after paintings by Parmigianino, Tintoretto and others.
The public source identifies “Antonio Maria Zanetti” as venetian artist, engraver, art critic, art dealer and connoisseur (1679–1767). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Antonio, Maria and Zanetti.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q944948. VIAF identifies the subject as 73991459. The Library of Congress control number is n87103723. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1680, 1767, 1715 and 1750.
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This entry incorporates text from “Antonio Maria Zanetti” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.