Gheerart Janssen (sculptor) in the context of "Gerard Johnson (sculptor)"

Gerard Johnson Jr. (Dutch: Gheerart Janssen; fl. 1612–1623) was a sculptor working in Jacobean England who is traditionally supposed to have created Shakespeare's funerary monument (although this attribution has more recently been challenged). In May 1612 Johnson was paid for making part of a fountain for the east garden at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire.

His father, then known as Gheerart Janssen, came to England in 1567 from Holland. He established himself as a sculptor of funerary monuments in London. Gerard the elder worked on a monument to the 1st Earl of Southampton, which also depicts Shakespeare's patron, the 3rd Earl, as a young man. Shakespeare would probably have seen the monument if he had stayed at Titchfield.