Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Green, Valentine
GREEN, VALENTINE (1739–1813), mezzotint engraver, born on 16 Oct. 1739 at Salford, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, was the son of a dancing-master, and was articled to William Phillips, the townclerk of the borough of Evesham. At the end of two years he forsook the study of the law, and in 1760 became the pupil of Robert Hancock, a line engraver at Worcester, but not progressing to his own satisfaction in that branch of the art, he went in 1765 to London, and turned his attention to engraving in mezzotint. In 1766 he exhibited two works at the rooms of the Incorporated Society of Artists, of which he became a member in 1767, and before long achieved a brilliant success. His plates of ‘The Return of Regulus to Carthage’ and ‘Hannibal swearing eternal Enmity to the Romans,’ after the paintings by Benjamin West in the royal collection, the largest historical works until then executed in mezzotint, added greatly to his reputation. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1774, and in 1775 he was elected an associate engraver, and appointed mezzotint engraver to the king. In 1789 the Elector Charles Theodore of Bavaria granted him the exclusive privilege of engraving and publishing prints from the pictures in the Düsseldorf Gallery, and by 1795 he had completed twenty-two plates from that collection, but the outbreak of war wrecked the enterprise, and the subsequent siege and destruction of the castle and gallery by the French in 1798 involved him and his son Rupert, who was his partner, in serious loss. There is a ‘Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures from the Dusseldorf Gallery, exhibited at the Great Room, Spring Gardens, London,’ which was published in 1793. On the foundation of the British Institution in 1805 he was appointed keeper, and by his exertions contributed greatly to its success. He died in St. Alban's Street, London, on 29 June 1813. He was a fellow both of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society.
Green engraved about four hundred plates during his career of upwards of forty years. All show great mastery of his art and originality of style, but, like other artists of the time, he was more intent upon making his portraits works of art than faithful likenesses. His finest portraits are after Sir Joshua Reynolds, and include those of the painter himself, from the original in the Royal Academy; Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire; Mary Isabella, duchess of Rutland; the Ladies Waldegrave; Emily Mary, countess of Salisbury; Louisa, countess of Aylesford; Lady Elizabeth Dalmé and her children; Jane, countess of Harrington; Anne, viscountess Townshend; Lady Louisa Manners; Lady Jane Halliday; the Duke of Buccleuch; Sir William Chambers; Miss Sarah Campbell; Lady Elizabeth Compton, afterwards countess of Burlington; Lady Henrietta Herbert, afterwards countess of Powis; Lady Caroline Howard, afterwards Lady Cawdor; Charlotte, countess Talbot; the Duke of Bedford, with his two brothers and Miss Vernon. Many of these bring high prices at public auction, and at the sale of the Duke of Buccleuch's prints (17 March 1887) the engraving of Reynolds's ‘Ladies Waldegrave’ fetched the large sum of 262l. 10s. Among portraits after other masters Green engraved those of Charles Theodore, elector of Bavaria, after Batoni; Mrs. Cosway, after herself; Mrs. Yates as the Tragic Muse, after Romney; Miss Hunter, after E.F. Calze; Mrs. Green, his wife, with her son Rupert (called a ‘Mother and Child’), after Falconet; David Garrick and Mark Beaufoy, after Gainsborough; Richard Cumberland, after Romney; Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard in Macbeth, after Zoftany; George Washington, after Trumbull; Miss Martha Ray, after Dance; Prince Rupert, after Rembrandt; and Henry, earl of Danby, George, marquis of Huntly, and Sir Thomas Wharton, after Vandyck, for the Houghton Gallery. Besides the two works above mentioned, he engraved several scriptural and classical subjects after Benjamin West, such as ‘The Raising of Lazarus,’ ‘The Three Maries at the Sepulchre,’ ‘The Death of Epaminondas,’ ‘Agrippina weeping over the ashes of Germanicus,’ and ‘The Death of the Chevalier Bayard,’ as well as two portraits of Queen Charlotte, and three plates of the children of George III. His other subject plates include ‘The Visitation,’ ‘The Presentation in the Temple,’ and ‘The Descent from the Cross,’ after Rubens; ‘Time clipping the Wings of Love,’ after Vandyck; ‘The Dutch School,’ after Jan Steen; ‘The Virgin and Child,’ after Domenichino; ‘The Assumption of the Virgin’ and ‘St. John with the Lamb,’ after Murillo; ‘Venus and Cupid,’ after Agostino Carracci; ‘The Entombment of Christ,’ after Lodovico Carracci; ‘A Hermit,’ after Mola; ‘The Wright Family’ and ‘The Air Pump,’ after Joseph Wright of Derby; and ‘The Sulky Boy,’ ‘The Disaster of the Milk-pail,’ and ‘The Child of Sorrow,’ after R. Morton Paye.
Green wrote: 1. ‘A Survey of the City of Worcester,’ Worcester, 1764, 8vo ; afterwards enlarged into ‘The History and Antiquities of the City and Suburbs of Worcester,’ London, 1796, 4to, 2 vols. 2. ‘A Review of the Polite Arts in France, at the time of their establishment under Louis XIV, compared with their present state in England,’ London, 1782, 4to, in a letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds. 3. ‘Acta Historica Reginarum Angliæ; from twelve original drawings executed by J. G. Huck of Dusseldorf,’ 1786, 4to. 4. ‘An Account of the Discovery of the Body of King John in the Cathedral Church of Worcester, July 17, 1797,’ London, 1797, 4to.
There is a portrait of Valentine Green, engraved by himself, after a painting by Lemuel F. Abbott, which was also engraved in line by James Fittler, A.R.A., and prefixed to the ‘History and Antiquities of Worcester.’
Rupert Green, the only son of Valentine Green, born about 1768, was brought up to his father's profession, and was in partnership with him as a print publisher from about 1785 to 1798. There is a view of ‘The Harbour and Pier, Ramsgate,’ drawn by him in 1781, and engraved by V. Green and F. Jukes, and also an oval portrait of George III, drawn and engraved in mezzotint by him, and published in 1801. Before he was nine years old he wrote a tragedy called ‘The Secret Plot,’ which was printed for private circulation in 1777. He died on 16 Nov. 1804, aged 36, and was buried in Hampstead churchyard.
[Monthly Mirror, 1809, i. 323, ii. 7, 135, with portrait engraved by Freeman; Gent. Mag. 1813, i. 666, ii. 446; John Chaloner Smith's British Mezzotinto Portraits, 1878-83, ii.532-99; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Graves, 1886-9, i. 597; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Sandby's Hist. of the Royal Academy of Arts, 1862, i. 233-5; Exhibition Catalogues of the Incorporated Society of Artists, 1766-75; Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogues, 1774-1806; Park's Topography and Natural History of Hampstead, 1814, p. 347.]