Drawing of Plan of the Old Palace of Whitehall as it was in 1680

Location

Country: Other
City: storage

This preparatory drawing by George Vertue is based on a survey of Whitehall Palace made by John Fisher during the reign of Charles II. The drawing is lettered on a banner at the top: ‘A Survey & Ground Plot of the Royal Palace of Whitehall’, and includes a rococo design with the coat of arms of Henry VIII and an empty dedicatory cartouche. On both sides, we notice a similarly elaborate architectural ornamentation containing lettered explanatory charts with the names of the occupiers of the buildings shown in the actual plan.

George Vertue was born in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London. His parents served in the court of James II and his father may have later become a tailor. He was first apprenticed to a silver engraver and later to Flemish engraver Michael Vandergucht. His early work includes plates after Kneller, whose academy he attended from 1711. Vertue served as official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries (1717-56). In the 1720s he concentrated on portrait frontispieces, producing over 120 in total. From 1727 he was engraver to Oxford University. Vertue was also a publisher and ran a print shop near Drury Lane. In 1712 he began gathering information for a publication on the history of art in Britain, which remained unfinished at his death.

Places

England, London, Whitehall Palace

Subjects

map (as Subject), topography, architectural plan/technical drawing, townscape/cityscape, river, coat of arms, street, government building, palace

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), ink, wash drawing, wash

Artist

George Vertue (1684 - 1756)

Title

Drawing of Plan of the Old Palace of Whitehall as it was in 1680

Date

1747

Medium

Pen and ink and wash, on paper

Dimensions

height: 55.00 cm, width: 72.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from R J Lister, June 1924

Inscription

Ins (mnt)

Provenance

Purchased from R J Lister 1924 (probably)

GAC number

382