Balthazar Gerbier
Encyclopedia
Masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...
s, shows and entertainments for great Princes... as likewise for making of engines useful in war."
Biography
Gerbier, the son of Anthony Gerbier, was born in MiddelburgMiddelburg
Middelburg is a municipality and a city in the south-western Netherlands and the capital of the province of Zeeland. It is situated in the Midden-Zeeland region. It has a population of about 48,000.- History of Middelburg :...
, Zeeland, of a Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
family that had settled there. Dutch sources show that his family were cloth merchants although 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 Nassau, later Prince 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
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham KG was the favourite, claimed by some to be the lover, of King James I of England. Despite a very patchy political and military record, he remained at the height of royal favour for the first two years of the reign of Charles I, until he was assassinated...
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
York House, Strand
York House in the Strand in London was one of a string of mansions which once stood along the route from the City of London to the royal court at Westminster. It was built as the London home of the Bishops of Norwich not later than 1237, and around 300 years later it was acquired by King Henry VIII...
in the Strand and at New Hall, Essex (both since demolished). At York House and at New Hall, Gerbier was busy with architectural alterations for Buckingham, 1624-25. At York House, a visit from Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...
while the paving was being laid in the grande chambre reveals Gerbier's intense competitiveness with the Surveyor of the King's Works, whose apparent jealousy of what he saw at York House gave Gerbier undisguised delight.
Spanish Match
The Spanish Match was a proposed marriage between Prince Charles, the son of King James I of England, and Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, the daughter of Philip III of Spain...
. In Madrid Gerbier painted a portrait of the Infanta that was returned to London for the approval of James I. On a similar mission in Paris in 1625 he met his fellow countryman, diplomatist and courtier, Peter Paul 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. When Rubens died in 1640, 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, a difficult post (1631–1641) While in Brussels as the English agent, Gerbier conspired with Flemish nobles to overthrow their Spanish governors and then sold the secret of the conspiracy to the King of Spain. King Charles never found out and Gerbier was knighted in 1638 and appointed Master of Ceremonies, in charges of the royal "shows and entertainments" but was disappointed not to receive Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones is the first significant British architect of the modern period, and the first to bring Italianate Renaissance architecture to England...
'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
Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland
Richard Weston, 1st Earl of Portland, KG , was Chancellor of the Exchequer and later Lord Treasurer of England under James I and Charles I, being one of the most influential figures in the early years of Charles I's Personal Rule and the architect of many of the policies that enabled him to rule...
, for whom Gerbier advised on the construction of a house and garden at Putney Park, Roehampton, Surrey, which was demolished in the eighteenth century (Colvin). For the same patron he supervised the equestrian statue of Charles the First, now at Charing Cross.
A political feud soon led to Gerbier's replacement in 1641, followed by a couple of decades during the Civil War and the Commonwealth in which he improvised a living, ventured a banking scheme in France, made a gold-hunting venture to Guiana
French Guiana
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...
, kept a painting academy in Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is a district of the East End of London, England and part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the far northern parts falling within the London Borough of Hackney. Located northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically an agrarian hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney,...
, and allied himself to Cromwell and his republican government, with a profession of loyalty to the Parliamentarians in 1642-43 and a dedication to Lord Fairfax
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron
Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron was a general and parliamentary commander-in-chief during the English Civil War...
of a lecture on military architecture (1650), so publicly, that with the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
, 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
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
's coronation were engraved; Colvin notes that J. Ogilvie's Relation of His Majestie's entertainment passing through the City of London to his coronation with a description of the triumphal arches (1661, 2nd ed. 1662) credits the design of the arches to Peter Mills "and another Person, who desir's to have his name concealed", whom Colvin surmises to have been the disgraced Gerbier, who refers to them in his Brief Discourse (1662). Colvin notes similarities with Rubens' designs for the royal entry
Royal Entry
The Royal Entry, also known by various other names, including Triumphal Entry and Joyous Entry, embraced the ceremonial and festivities accompanying a formal entry by a ruler or his representative into a city in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period in Europe...
of the Cardinal Infante Ferdinand into Antwerp, 1635 (published 1642), with which Gerbier would have been familiar.
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) and Counsel and Advise to all Builders (1663). He was commissioned to rebuild Hampstead Marshall, Berkshire, for William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven (1608–1697), but died there, with the structure still in the works: the piano nobile
Piano nobile
The piano nobile is the principal floor of a large house, usually built in one of the styles of classical renaissance architecture...
had not yet been begun. It was completed by Captain William Winde
William Winde
Captain William Winde was an English gentleman architect, whose Royalist military career, resulting in fortifications and topographical surveys but lack of preferment, and his later career, following the Glorious Revolution, as designer or simply "conductor" of the works of country houses, has...
, but suffered a disastrous fire in 1718 (Colvin).