George Vertue

George Vertue FSA (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period.

[2] His travels to sites across England, with enthusiasts such as Edward Harley (Earl of Oxford), Lord Coleraine and others, were recorded in Vertue's highly detailed drawings and notes.

He produced a catalogue detailing the collections of the royal family, at the request of Frederick, Prince of Wales, an avid buyer of the engraver's work.

A later painting, of the artist aged around 50, by Jonathan Richardson was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, a plate of this by Thomas Chambers was engraved for Walpole's Anecdotes.

An 1849 edition of Walpole's book contained an engraving, by George Thomas Doo, of a self-portrait—sitting in a library—that shows him displaying a portrait of the Earl of Oxford; this was previously published in 1821 as a lithograph.

The Dictionary of National Biography, 1900, makes special note of one reproduction by Vertue, in the article on Ralph Agas, In 1737 George Vertue, the engraver and antiquary, published a pretended copy of Agas's map of London [the "Woodcut" map], stating that it was executed in 1560, and that it gave a true representation of the metropolis as it existed at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign.

Overall is of opinion that Vertue, having become possessed of the parts of a copy of the map made by some unknown Dutch engraver in the reign of William III, caused them to be "tinkered," probably for the purpose of deceiving his antiquarian friends.