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Qualifications
watercolorist, author, engraver (printmaker), reproductive engraver, art collector, mezzotinter, miniaturist painter, musician, draftsperson, art historian
engraver and draftsman in the service of Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, with and for whom he made extensive journeys through England. His manuscripts are now based in the Britsh Museum (Welbeck Mss.) Horace Walpole based his Anecdotes of Painting on these manuscripts. Vertue was a keen researcher on details of the history of British art, accumulating about forty volumes of notebooks. As an art historian he wrote 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.
Nationality/school
English
Born
London (England) 1684-11-17
Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, his father, perhaps a tailor, and mother are noted as 'Roman Catholic'.
Deceased
London (England) 1756-07/1756-07-24
Vertue was buried on July 24, 1756 in the cemetery of Westminster Abbey. His epitaph hangs in the Abbey itself (Hind 1914, p.121)
Family relationships
this field records any family relationship to one or more other artist(s).
brother of the portrait painter James Vertue
See also
In this field, you will find references to names of groups or to the artists that made/make up groups. You may also come across references to other artists if there was/is question of collaboration without a joint name. This is the case, for instance, with artists who rendered parts of works by other artists (such as with P.P Rubens and J. Brueghel I).
He was amongst the first members of Godfrey Kneller's London Academy of Painting, who had employed him to engrave portraits
This person/entity in other databases
Biographical information
Active in
  • Londen (Engeland) 1700 - 1756
    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. In 1717 he was appointed official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries, the same year as its formal foundation.
born in
active in
died in
Subjects
This field specifies the various subject categories or genres that constitute the oeuvre of the artist in question. The contents of this field are generally based more on the documentation available at the RKD than on the literature.
history (genre), portrait, cityscape, topography, princely portrait
He is said to have made approximately 500 portraits and about the same amount of antiquarian prints of architecture and antiquities.
Creation date: 1992-01-31; Last modified date: 2023-05-17

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