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.

George Vertue, portrait by Jonathan Richardson (1733).
The Gate at Whitehall ( Holbein Gate ) in Vetusta Monumenta Vol.1, 1747 (1826). [ 4 ]