Peter ScheemakersorPieter Scheemaeckers II or the Younger (10 January 1691 – 12 September 1781)[1] was a Flemish sculptor who worked for most of his life in London. His public and church sculptures in a classicist style had an important influence on the development of modern sculpture in England.[2]
Peter Scheemakers the Younger was born in Antwerp and baptised Pieter-Caspar Scheemaekers at the Sint-Jacobskerk or St. James' Church, Antwerp on 10 January 1691, son of sculptor Peter Scheemaekers aka Pieter Scheemaeckers and Catharina van der Hulst (d.1712).[5] His eldest brother Hendrik (Henry) Scheemakers' baptism has not been found, but Peter's other siblings were: Catharina baptised 1 October 1688 (died young), Elisabeth baptised 6 July 1693 (still living when Peter wrote his Will in 1771), Jan-Frans baptised 2 February 1696 (ditto), and another Catharina baptised 20 March 1698 (died before 1771 leaving one daughter), all baptised at the St Jacobskerk in Antwerp.
Peter followed his father as a sculptor, and joined his elder brother Henry Scheemakers working in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the court sculptor Johann Adam Sturmberg (1683–1741), for two years 1718–1720.[6] It is said that in 1715 Peter walked from Copenhagen to Rome (over 1500 km) where he studied both classical and baroque styles of sculpture.[citation needed]
The Shakespeare memorial in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey
In about 1720 Scheemakers settled in London where he befriended fellow Flemish sculptor, Gent-born Laurent Delvaux (1696–1778), who had been in London since 1717 on the recommendation of his former Master, Antwerp-born Pierre-Denis Plumier.[7] At the time, Pierre-Denis Plumier was still in Brussels, but he came to London in early 1721 with his family, intending to settle permanently. Plumier had started on a funerary monument to John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, when he died only a few months after his arrival.[8] The monument was completed by Peter Scheemakers and Laurent Delvaux in partnership, and installed in Westminster Abbey in 1722.[6] By 1726, his brother Henry Scheemakers had also settled in London, in Old Palace Yard in St Margaret's Westminster, staying here until he moved to Paris in the mid-1730s.
Scheemakers and Delvaux then entered into a formal partnership and set up a workshop in Millbank, south of Westminster in London, in 1723. Their workshop produced many sober classical monuments and garden statuary in the Antique style. However, in order to finance their long-planned trips to study both antique and recent masterpieces in Rome, the two partners sold their stock in April 1728, including 30 items Delvaux had inherited from Plumier on marrying his widow in 1726, and the two sculptors travelled to Rome in 1728. Delvaux stayed in Rome until 1733 when he was appointed Court Sculptor in Brussels, but Scheemakers stayed only two years before returning to England in 1730.
Upon his return Scheemakers restarted the Millbank workshop in St Martin's Lane.[6] His 'ideal' classical sculptures became very popular with the landowning class and the city merchants. He moved his workshop twice more: first to Old Palace Yard in St Margaret's Westminster in 1736 and then in 1740 to Vine Street in St James's where he stayed until he retired in 1771.[9]
Scheemakers worked for a time with Francis Bird,[7] and his brother Henry Scheemakers was in partnership with Henry Cheere for a few years. Peter taught Charles Cope Trubshaw[1] and Thomas Banks. In 1750 he took as apprentice sculptor Joseph Nollekens (1737–1823), son of fellow Antwerp-born artist Josef Frans Nollekens (1702–1748), who stayed on as journeyman before leaving for Rome around 1762.[10] Nollekens must have remained close to Peter's Vine Street successor, his nephew Thomas Scheemakers, as Thomas appointed Nollekens as one of his executors.
Peter Scheemakers had married Barbara La Fosse but they had no children. His brother, sculptor Henry Scheemakers (c.1686–1748), had moved to Paris in the mid-1730s and both Henry's sons had also become sculptors. The elder, Peter, known as Pierre Scheemackers (c.1728–1765), remained in Paris where he became a professor at the Académie de Saint-Luc, but died shortly afterwards in 1765. Henry's younger son Thomas-Henry known as Thomas Scheemakers (c.1740–1808) left Paris to join his uncle Peter in London, leasing the workshop in Vine Street after Peter retired in 1771, and referred to at his death in 1808 as "Thomas Scheemakers of Vine Street, Statuary".
Peter Scheemakers retired in 1771, aged 80, his wife Barbara having died in 1768,[11] and returned to live with his siblings Elisabeth and Francis in their native town of Antwerp. He died there in September 1781 and was buried in the same church in which he had been baptised over 90 years earlier.[6][12]
Peter Scheemakers "native of Antwerp but now of Vine Street in the parish of St James Westminster, Statuary" had signed his Will in London on 19 June 1771, witnessed by William Lister and Sarah Whip.[13] Probate was granted on 24 September 1781. His bequests were 10 guineas to Peter's mason Christopher Finny; the same to Mr Vandermeulen, Statuary; and the same again to Mr Dennis Byrne. 20 guineas to his servant. £50 to his niece Anna-Maria Vandiepenbeeck; the same to Mr James Bucher [sic], haberdasher of Pall Mall, who was also appointed sole executor. All the rest of Peter's effects in England were to be divided equally into four parts and distributed between his 4 siblings or if deceased, their descendants: ¼ to sister Elisabeth Scheemaekers, ¼ to brother Frans (Jan-Frans) Scheemaekers, ¼ to niece Anna-Maria Vandiepenbeeck as sole child of deceased sister Catharina, ¼ to be shared equally between the surviving children of deceased brother Henry viz. nephew Thomas Scheemakers and Thomas's two sisters Marie-Louise and Genevieve-Catherine. These provisions confirm that Peter was childless and that Thomas Scheemakers, the London sculptor hitherto assumed to be his son and sole heir, was Peter's nephew and received just 1/12th of Peter's estate.
Peter Scheemakers created 16 works – monuments, figures, busts and tombs – for Westminster Abbey alone, of which 15 are still in situ:
Monument to John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, Westminster Abbey
Monument to William Shakespeare (1740), Peter Scheemakers' most admired work.[14] However, as this was designed by William Kent, the admiration for design and execution should rightly be shared.
Monument to John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby d.Feb 1721. Based on Plumier's design which he started, but completed by Peter Scheemakers and Laurent Delvaux after Plumier's unexpected death. Dedicated in 1722.[15]
Monument to Dr Hugh Chamberlen d.June 1728, paid for by the widowed Duchess of Buckingham, and also executed in collaboration with Laurent Delvaux.[16]
In 1743, Mary Coghill erected the parish church of Clonturk (now Drumcondra Church) in memory of her brother Marmaduke Coghill, and placed in it a statue of her brother by Scheemakers.[31]
Between 1970 and 1993, an image of Scheemakers's Shakespeare statue appeared on the reverse of Series D £20 notes issued by the Bank of England. Alongside the statue was an engraving of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.[32][33]
^"John Dryden". Poets' Graves. Retrieved 22 October 2008.
^Rijksarchief in België, Parochieregisters, Provincie Antwerpen, BE-A0511, Sint-Jacobus, Doopakten 1682–1693, 10 Januari 1691: Petrus Gaspar, Petrus Scheemakers, Catharina van der Hulst, [godparents] Gaspar Roosens, Maria van der Hulst.
^ abcdHelena Bussers and Ingrid Roscoe. "Scheemakers." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 27 Mar. 2014; See also Alain Jacobs (1999), Laurent Delvaux 1696–1778, Paris, Arthena, 1999, passim.
^Alain Jacobs, "Pierre-Denis Plumier (Anvers 1688-Londres 1721)", Revue Belge d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'Art, Vol.68, 1999
^City of Westminster Archives, Westminster Rate Books: Peter Scheemakers in Old Palace Yard, St Margaret's Westminster 1737 and 1738. Peter Scheemakers in Vine Street (west), St James's Westminster, yearly 1742–1771.
^Roscoe, Ingrid; Hardy, Emma; Sullivan, M. G., eds. (2009). "Scheemakers, Peter". A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660–1851. Yale University Press. ISBN9780300149654.
^Westminster Archives, St Martin in the Fields Burials, 7 March 1768 : "Barbara Scheemaker".
^Rijksarchief in België, Parochieregisters, Provincie Antwerpen, BE-A0511, Sint-Jacobus, Overlijdensakten 1779–1796, 12 Sept 1781: Petrus Gaspar Scheemaeckers viduus Barbara La Fosse aeta 90 anni et 8 mensium [sic] iima vespi: et ista sepultus in Ecclesia nostra.
^Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, The National Archives, PROB 11 Piece 1082, the Will of Peter Sheemakers, dated 19 June 1771, probate granted 24 Sep 1781.
