Balthazar Gerbier

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Sir Balthazar Gerbier (Middelburg, Zeeland,23 February 1592, N.S. — Hamstead Marshall, Berkshire, 1663^[1]), was an Anglo-Dutch courtier, diplomat, art advisor, miniaturist and architectural designer, in his own words fluent in "several languages" with "a good hand in writing, skill in sciences as mathematics, architecture, drawing, painting, contriving of scenes, masques, shows and entertainments for great Princes... as likewise for making of engines useful in war."

Gerbier was of a Huguenot family of an aristocratic line, son of Anthony Gerbier. He claimed that his grandfather had been a 'baron Douvilly" and so signed himself on occasion.

As a designer of siege machinery he was recommended by Maurice of Orange, through whose efforts Gerbier arrived in London in 1616, in the train of the Dutch ambassador. In London he soon found a patron in George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, for whom he found paintings and negotiated their purchase acting in a sense as keeper of the Duke's collection, and for whom he painted miniatures and oversaw remodelling about 1625, at York House, London^[2] and at New Hall, Essex (both demolished).

With Buckingham and Prince Charles, Gerbier was a member of the ill-fated diplomatic party in connection with the Spanish Match. In Madrid Gerbier painted a portrait of the Infanta that was returned to London for the approval of James. On a similar mission in Paris in 1625 he met his fellow countryman, diplomatist and courtier, Rubens, with whom he developed a close friendship; when Rubens went to London in 1629, it was with Gerbier that he lodged. Rubens' portrait of Gerbier's family is in the Royal Collection, Windsor.^[3] When Rubens died, Gerbier was in Antwerp and sent an inventory of his collection to Charles. The king inherited Gerbier after Buckingham's assassination (1628)and employed him as resident agent in Brussels. Gerbier was knighted in 1631 and appointed Master of Ceremonies, in charges of the royal "shows and entertainments" but was disappointed not to receive Inigo Jones's post of Surveyor of the King's Works.

His court appointment put him in contact with the Lord Treasurer, Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, for whom Gerbier advised on the construction of a house at Putney Park, Roehampton, Surrey, which was demolished in the eighteenth century (Colvin).

A political feud soon led to Gerbier's replacement in 1641, followed by a couple of decades in which he improvised a living, made a gold-hunting venture to Guiana, kept a painting academy in Bethnal Green, and allied himself to Lord Fairfax,^[4] so publicly that with the Restoration, his suit for reinstatement as Master of Ceremonies was turned away, and he had to retreat into anonymity when the designs for the temporary triumphal arches for Charles ii's corontation were engraved (Colvin).

In the 1660s Gerbier's necessities induced him to advertise himself by publishing some essays on architecture: A brief Discourse concerning the Three Chief Principals of Magnificent Building (1662) andCounsel and Advise to all Builders (1663). He was commissioned to rebuild Hamstead Marshall, Berkshire, for William, 1st Earl of Craven, but died with the structure still in the works: the piano nobile had not yet been begun. It was completed by Captain William Winde, but suffered a disastrous fire in 1718 (Colvin)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ The date 1667 given on the tomb erected for him in Hamstead Marshall church, at a later date, seems to be imncorrect, as his daughters were applying for alms in 1663, after his death (Colvin).
2. ^ Gerbier is one of the candidates for designer of the surviving York Water Gate that is the only surviving element.
3. ^ Sir Balthazar Gerbier was also painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck.
4. ^ Notably with a lecture on military architecture he dedicated to the Parliamentarian general.

[edit] References

• Howard Colvin, A biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840 3rd ed. 1995.
• Edward Croft-Murray and Paul Hulton, Catalogue of British Drawings in the British Museum, 1960, pp 328-30.