Wannenes was founded in 2001 with headquarters in Genoa. The history of the company has followed the antique traditions of the city of Genoa intending always to look beyond the present and benefit from the many and varied opportunities that an increasingly international market – as well as an increasingly more sophisticated and selective collecting public – demand today.
Over the years a large amount of art historians, antique dealers, gallery owners, directors of public and private museums, specialised journalists and sophisticated collectors has contributed to the success of the company. The number of auctions has increased as each year goes by and there have been openings of new offices in Rome in 2003 and in Milan in 2008. For Wannenes this has resulted in a significant increase in the number of staff as well as external consultants and experts.
Over these last few years, numerous objectives have been fulfilled, significant moments of a story that has unravelled amid a climate that has often been audacious and always gratifying for the company. This has been the case both in House Sales – several of which have taken place in houses of the utmost prestige - as well as in Department auctions such as the large altarpiece by Ludovico Brea depicting the Ascension of Christ acquired by the National Gallery of Genoa at Palazzo Spinola. The importance of this latter acquisition was additional proof of the careful and proven approach to the profession on behalf of Wannenes, an approach that reaches much further than mere economic advantage.
However, the most innovative part of the company has been the creation of the Private Treaty and Single Collections Division, a new Department that is specialised in the management and sale of private properties and that has placed the company at the highest level in the management of art collections in Italy, attracting the interest of a whole host of international collectors and museum curators towards a new way of buying and selling art and working within the art market. 24 themed auctions from 2009 to today for a total of 23,553,929 euro – exclusive relations, refined and exhaustive catalogues for collectors and connoisseurs who lave the pleasure of knowledge.