Peter Scheemakers
| Peter Scheemakers | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Scheemakers by Andreas Bernardus de Quertenmont
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| Born |
16 January 1691 Antwerp, Belgium |
| Died | 12 September 1781 (aged 90) Antwerp, Belgium |
| Nationality | Flemish |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Notable work | Church monuments around England, notably William Shakespeare and John Dryden memorials, Poets' Corner |
| Patron(s) | William Kent |
Peter Scheemakers or Pieter Scheemaeckers II or the Younger (16 January 1691 – 12 September 1781) was a Flemish sculptor who worked for most of his life in London, Great Britain where his public and church sculptures in a classicist style had an important influence on the development of sculpture.
Scheemakers is perhaps best known for executing the William Kent-designed memorial to William Shakespeare which was erected in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in 1740 as well as that to John Dryden in the same church.
He learned his art from his father, the Antwerp sculptor Pieter Scheemaeckers. He visited Denmark where he studied for four years with the court sculptor Johann Adam Sturmberg (1683–1741). He walked to Rome where he and Delvaux studied both classical and baroque styles of sculpture before settling in London in 1716. He and Delvaux worked there with another Flemish sculptor Pieter-Denis Plumier on a funeral monument to John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, which they delivered in 1722 after the death of Plumier.
Scheemakers and Delvaux entered into a formal partnership and set up a workshop in Millbank, Westminster, in 1723. Their workshop produced many sober classical monuments and garden statuary after the Antique. The partners sold their stock in the partnership and travelled to Rome in 1728. Scheemakers stayed here for two years to study both antique and recent masterpieces. Upon his return to England in 1730 Scheemakers restarted the Milbank workshop on his own. His 'ideal' classical sculptures became very popular with the landowning class and the city merchants. He moved his workshop a few times: first to Old Palace Yard in 1736 and then to Vine Street in 1740 where he was active until his retirement in 1771. He returned to Antwerp where he died at the old age of 90.
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