Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Sturt, John
STURT, JOHN (1658–1730), engraver, was born in London on 6 April 1658, and at the age of seventeen was apprenticed to Robert White [q. v.], in whose manner he engraved a number of small portraits as frontispieces to books. Becoming associated with John Ayres [q. v.], he engraved the most important of that famous writing-master's books on calligraphy, and acquired celebrity for his skill in such work; he engraved the Lord's Prayer within the space of a silver halfpenny, the Creed in that of a silver penny, and an elegy on Queen Mary on so small a scale that it could be inserted in a finger-ring. Sturt's most remarkable production was the Book of Common Prayer, executed on 188 silver plates, all adorned with borders and vignettes, the frontispiece being a portrait of George I, on which are inscribed, in characters so minute as to be legible only with a magnifying glass, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Commandments, the prayer for the royal family, and the twenty-first psalm. This was published in 1717, and in 1721 he engraved, in a similar manner, the ‘Orthodox Communicant.’ He was extremely industrious, and executed the illustrations to many of the religious and artistic publications of the time, including Bragge's ‘Passion of Our Saviour,’ 1694; the elder Samuel Wesley's ‘History of the Old and New Testament in Verse,’ 1704 and 1715; the English editions of Audran's ‘Perspective of the Human Body,’ Pozzo's ‘Rules of Perspective,’ and Perrault's ‘Treatise on the Five Orders of Architecture;’ Laurence Howell's ‘View of the Pontificate,’ 1712; J. Hamond's ‘Historical Narrative of the Whole Bible,’ 1727; and Bunyan's ‘Pilgrim's Progress,’ 1728. He also engraved the ‘Genealogy of George I,’ in two sheets, 1714; ‘Chronological Tables of Europe,’ 1726; and a plate of the ‘Seven Bishops,’ from a calligraphic drawing by T. Rodway. Sturt was the inventor of the quaint class of prints known as ‘medleys,’ the first of which he published in 1706. His last employment was upon the plates to James Anderson's valuable work ‘Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Thesaurus.’ He at one time kept a drawing school in St. Paul's churchyard in partnership with Bernard Lens (1659–1725) [see under Lens, Bernard, (1631–1708)]. He died in London in reduced circumstances in August 1730. A portrait of Sturt, mezzotinted by W. Humphrey from a painting by Faithorne, was published in 1774.
[Strutt's Dict. of Engravers; Walpole's Anecdotes, ed. Dallaway and Wornum; Vertue's collections in Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 23070 f. 29, 23076 f. 29, 23078 f. 66; Dodd's manuscript Hist. of English Engravers, Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 33405.]