GREEN, VALENTINE (1739-1813), British engraver, was born at Halesowen. He became a pupil of a line engraver at Worcester and in 1765 he migrated to London and began work as a mezzotint engraver. He became a member of the Incorpo rated Society of Artists in 1767, and an associate-engraver of the Royal Academy in 1775. The enclusive right of engraving and publishing plates from the pictures in the Dusseldorf gallery was granted him by the duke of Bavaria in 1789, but, after he had issued more than 20 of these plates, the siege of that city by the French caused him serious financial loss.
Poverty drove him in 1805 to accept the post of keeper of the British Institution, which he held until his death. During his career as an engraver he produced some 400 plates after portraits by Reynolds, Romney and other British artists, after the corn positions of Benjamin West, and after pictures by Van Dyck, Rubens, Murillo and other old masters. He was one of the firs t engravers to show how admirably mezzotint could be applied to the translation of pictorial compositions as well as portraits, but his portraits are most valued by collectors.
See Alfred Whitman, Valentine Green (1902).