Balthazar Gerbier

Sir Balthazar Gerbier (23 February 1592, N.S. — 1663), 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, the son of Anthony Gerbier, was born in Middelburg, Zeeland, of a Huguenot 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 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 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 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.

With Buckingham and Prince Charles (the future Charles I), Gerbier was a member of the ill-fated diplomatic party that travelled to Madrid 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 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's post of Surveyor of the King's Works.

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