Gaspar Huberti, Engraver
(fl. 1645)
Engraver
From A Dictionary of Irish Artists 1913
He has the distinction of being the engraver of the earliest known print done in Ireland. He worked at Antwerp, and was probably connected with several other engravers of the name, Huberti or Huybrechts, who practised there in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A C. Huyberts worked in England about 1696, and engraved some anatomical subjects and nine plates of the "Triumph of Julius Caesar," after Andrea Mantegna. By Gaspar there is a folio engraving of the "Virgin and Child," with St. Benedict, Mary Magdalen, St. Jerome and angels, inscribed Pet Paul Rubens pinxit Gaspar Huberti excudit Antuerviae, undated.
Thomas Preston, Viscount Tara, was in the Low Countries for some years, and returned to Ireland in 1642, when he was appointed to the command of the Confederate Catholics in Leinster. He probably brought with him Gaspar Huberti, for, after the capture of Duncannon Fort in 1645, a plan of the siege, with a portrait of Preston, was engraved at Kilkenny by Huberti. This is inscribed, A Prospect of the late Siedge of the Forte of Duncannon which began the 20th Jan: and was taken the 19 March 1644 under the command and conduct of Generall Preston. Preston's portrait appears in an oval in the upper part of the plan. He is represented at half-length in armour, his head uncovered, and in the background, on a pillar, a shield with his arms. At the foot is the inscription: Illustrissimo, nobilissimoque Domino, Domino Thomae Preston, Lageniensis exercitus in Hibernia Generali, arcisque Duncanon expugnatori, Gubernatorique meritissimo. The original picture from which the engraving is taken is at Gormanstown Castle. The plan is inscribed, Gasp Huberti sculp Kilkenie anno 1645. The only copy of this plan and portrait hitherto met with is in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. No other work which may have been done in Ireland by Gaspar Huberti is known.
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