Abraham van der Doort

"[3] The catalogue survives in a complete manuscript that was preserved by Elias Ashmole and is now held by the Bodleian Library, and in three fair copies of sections, all covered with van der Doort's annotations in a tight crabbed hand.

Under van der Doort's care, and with the guidance of painter-dealers, painter-ambassadors and English painting virtuosi, Charles had assembled what Oliver Millar, in editing a modern edition of catalogue, reckoned was the best single English collection of paintings ever made.

[4] George Vertue's notes on the former Royal Collection were published in 1757, which is the reason that, following its long series of the Vertue notebooks, a collated edition of the four manuscript catalogues was published by the Walpole Society as its Volume 37 (1958–60); it was edited by Millar, who later followed van der Doort as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures.

Millar provides the best biography of van der Doort, and details of the provenance of the pictures, many of which had come from the Gonzaga inheritance in Mantua, with a commentary on their later history and their attributions.

Van der Doort never lost the Dutch accent that is preserved in his copious annotations to the catalogues in his entirely phonetic spelling.