File:Drawing (BM 1854,0628.77).jpg

Height: 150 millimetres

Width: 127 millimetres

The following is the entry on this drawing from Kim Sloan, 'A Noble Art: Amateur Artists and Drawing Masters c. 1600-1800', exh. catalogue, BM, 2000, no. 5: This extraordinarily fine drawing was based on a portrait painted by Michiel Van Mierevelt (now Mauritshuis, The Hague) in 1613, the year Frederick V (1596-1620), Elector Palatine, married Elizabeth (1596-1662), the daughter of James I. After six years in Heidelberg, Frederick was offered the crown of Bohemia, but his acceptance marked the opening of the Thirty Years War. Within a year, Frederick and Elizabeth had lost their kingdom and the Palatinate. Prince Rupert, their third son, was born during their brief reign in Prague, shortly before they fled to The Hague and the protection of Frederick's uncle, Maurice, Prince of Orange. Balthazar Gerbier was born in Middelburg, the son of a Huguenot emigré. He may have trained with Goltzius but it was his knowledge of military fortification and armaments that brought him to the attention of the Prince of Orange. He in turn recommended Gerbier to the Dutch Ambassador in London with whom he came to England in 1616. Another drawing on vellum in the Museum's collection, of Prince Maurice, is dated to that year. The ornate auricular frames with which Gerbier's drawings are embellished imply a possible connection with the engraver Simon de Passe, who came to England the same year and introduced this form of decoration, originally invented by Paul van Vianen, a silversmith, to his portrait engravings. A calligrapher, miniaturist, portrait painter and architect, Gerbier seems to have been able to turn his hand to almost any medium. A few years later he married the daughter of the Dutch immigrant goldsmith and engraver, William Kip. He designed and produced masques, as well as painitng in miniature and oils for the Duke of Buckingham, who appointed him 'Keeper of York House' in 1620 and sent him to Italy and France to purchase paintings on his behalf. It was in his capacity as Buckingham's agent, and later when he also made purchases for the King, that Gerbier made his greatest contribution to the arts in Britain, amassing collections for them that introduced the country and its connoisseurs to the work not only of contemporary artists like Rubens and Van Dyck, but especially to the works of the Italian High Renaissance, particularly the Venetian school, and Caravaggio and his followers. Gerbier negotiated with Rubens, on diplomatic and artistic matters and entertained and accommodated the artist during his stay in London in 1629-30. After Buckingham's assassination in 1628, Gerbier entered the King's employ as an artist, agent and diplomat and spent most of the 1630s as the King's Resident in Brussels. He was knighted in 1638 and on his return to London in 1641 the King appointed him 'Master of Ceremonies'. Gerbier had maintained his contacts with the exiled Bohemian court at the Hague and his son was serving with Prince Rupert when he was captured in 1637. Gerbier, who claimed descent from a Baron D'Ouvilly, was a courtier and diplomat forced to turn his hand to various schemes in order to survive when he joined other royalist refugees in Paris in the 1640s. After the failure of a banking scheme, he returned to London in 1649 after the execution of the King. Forced to abandon any courtly credentials, he relied on his skills as a diplomat and soldier and opened an Academy at his house in Bethnal Green, where drawing, painting, limning and carving were included amongst the subjects he offered to teach.