He was born in London and studied sculpture under Joseph Boehm, Matthew Noble, Édouard Lantéri and Pierre-Jules Cavelier.

He was made a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1892, yet his personal life was beginning to unravel as he took on too many commissions and entered into debt, whilst at the same time his wife's mental health deteriorated.

Gilbert received a royal commission for the tomb of Prince Albert Victor in 1892, but was unable to finish it and the number of complaints from other dissatisfied clients grew.

He returned to England and finally completed the tomb of Prince Albert Victor, as well as taking on new commissions such as the Queen Alexandra Memorial.

[2] Berners Street was at that time an area popular with artists and musicians: there were shops selling stained glass, carvings, printings and bronze artworks; Ford Madox Brown and Edward Hodges Baily had studios; Leigh's Academy (run by James Mathews Leigh) was nearby, later becoming the Thomas J. Heatherley School of Art.

[3]: 15  Eager to learn, he also worked in the studios of Sir Joseph Boehm, Matthew Noble, and William Gibbs Rogers.

[3]: 33  They lived at 63 Vicolo de'Miracoli, experiencing money problems as Gilbert waited to be paid for commissions whilst also having to pay rent.

He moved with his family to Rome in order to create the sculpture in marble, attracted by famed sculptors of the Renaissance such as Cellini, Donatello, Giambologna and Verrocchio.

[2] The work was acclaimed and led Frederic Leighton to commission Icarus (1884), which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884, along with Study of a Head (1882–83).

[3]: 51 Gilbert later stated to Joseph Hatton that the bronze statues Perseus Arming, Icarus and Comedy and Tragedy (1891–92) formed a trilogy which referenced his own life.

Perseus Arming had a huge impact on a new generation of artists, becoming a particular inspiration for the New Sculpture movement, since the method of casting (lost wax) was new to the English milieu and its height of 29 inches was innovative.

[3]: 40 Having returned to England, Gilbert took a studio in a complex off Fulham Road, where he built a foundry with Thomas Stirling Lee and Edward Onslow Ford.

[3]: 67  By then Gilbert had been commissioned to produce another memorial, this time for Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, which was placed in the Great Hall at Winchester Castle.

He diversified into goldsmithing and damascening, making an epergne (1887–1890) given to Queen Victoria by officers of the British Army and a chain for the mayor of Preston (1888–1892).

[8] He also created spoons, cups, dishes and jewellery; many of his designs can be seen in the collection of Stichting van Caloen on display at Loppem Castle in Belgium.

[9][8] Marion Spielmann, a contemporary art critic, wrote in 1901 "his taste is so pure, his genius so exquisitely right, that he may give full rein to his fancy without danger where another man would run riot and come to grief".

The mainstream media criticised the design of the fountain which led to passing flower girls being drenched in water and hooliganism meant it needed to be guarded for a year.

[11] In this period, Gilbert made statues of Donald Mackay, 11th Lord Reay, and prison reformer John Howard.

[2] He became a member of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers and in 1889 he won the Grand Prix at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

[16][2] Befriending Princess Louise had brought him into high society and he built a large house for his family with an attached studio in 16 Maida Vale, in north London.

His wife Alice was not at ease in London society and preferred to stay in a rented house in Gomshall, Surrey; soon after the unveiling of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, she had a breakdown and was committed to an asylum.

Lady Lytton wished to remember her husband the politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton with a plaque in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral.

Instead, she was forced to buy the bronze cast at a bankruptcy sale and to ask Edwin Lutyens (her son-in-law) to make a surrounding mould before it was eventually installed at St Paul's in 1903.

[8] To make matters worse, the photographs depicted the ivory and bronze statues which had been originally attached to the tomb and subsequently sold off by Gilbert in 1899.

Writing to King George V and various dignitaries, she promoted Gilbert's talents, arguing it was time for him to finish the tomb of Prince Albert Victor and also that he was the perfect person to take the commission to create a memorial to Queen Alexandra, who had died in 1925.

The King was glad to hear news of his old acquaintance and Lady Helena Gleichen became Gilbert's promoter, offering use of her studio at St James Palace if the funds could be raised to bring him from Italy.

[24] Gilbert's wife Alice had a breakdown soon after the official opening of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain in 1893 and spent time in a mental asylum.

[2][3]: 286  They had stopped living together by 1926, with Quaghebeur remaining in Belgium when Gilbert moved back to England again, although he sent her monthly cheques to support the family until his death.

[2] In 2017, a bust of Queen Victoria by Gilbert worth £1.2 million was subject to an export ban, having been sold at Sotheby's to a museum based in New York.

The work of art was deemed to meet all three of the Waverley Criteria, namely that it was of national artistic importance, it was of outstanding aesthetic value and it was vital for the study of sculpture.