Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Janssen, Bernard
JANSSEN or JANSEN, BERNARD (fl. 1610–1630), stonemason and tombmaker, a native of Holland, was in all probability a pupil of Hendrik de Keyser, the great sculptor and tombmaker at Amsterdam. He is sometimes described as an architect and the designer of Northampton (afterwards Northumberland) House at Charing Cross, built for Henry Howard, earl of Northampton [q. v.], and of Audley Inn (now Audley End) in Essex, built for that nobleman's nephew, Thomas Howard, first earl of Suffolk [q. v.] It is more probable that he was only the master mason who carried out the designs of Moses Glover [q. v.] in the former case and of John Thorpe [q. v.] in the latter. In 1615 he and Nicholas Stone [q. v.] were engaged on the tomb of Thomas Sutton in the Charterhouse, and they executed other commissions jointly, including a tomb for Sir Nicholas Bacon and his wife in Redgrave Church, Suffolk. It would appear that Stone contributed the portrait figures. The same artists were employed between 1617 and 1620 to erect in the church at Bergen-op-Zoom in Holland a monument to Marcel Bax, governor of that town. Bax's widow, who had married Sir David Balfour, an English commander, gave the commission. This church was totally destroyed in the bombardment of 1745. In 1626 Janssen designed the triumphal arch erected by the members of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, on the accession of Charles I. Janssen is described as a native of Southwark. There resided at the same date in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, Southwark, near the Globe Theatre, Geraert Janssen or Gerard Johnson (fl. 1616), who was also a tombmaker, and possibly Bernard's brother. He is noteworthy as having executed in 1616 the portrait bust of Shakespeare in the church at Stratford-on-Avon. In 1593 it was stated that a tombmaker of the name (see Diary of Sir W. Dugdale, edited by W. Hamper, appendix) was a native of Amsterdam, had lived twenty-six years in England with a wife named Mary, and was father of five sons and one daughter, all born in England. If not identical with the designer of Shakespeare's bust, he was no doubt his father, and perhaps father also of Bernard Janssen.
[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum; Messager des Sciences et Arts de la Belgique, 1858, p. 93; Moens's Reg. of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars; Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare.]