Peter Scheemakers

Peter Scheemakers or Pieter Scheemaeckers II or the Younger (1691[lower-alpha 1] – 12 September 1781)[2] 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.[3]

Peter Scheemakers
Portrait of Scheemakers by Andreas Bernardus de Quertenmont
Born1691, Antwerp
Died12 September 1781(1781-09-12) (aged 90), Antwerp
NationalityFlemish
Known forSculpture
Notable work
Tomb monuments and garden statuary
Patron(s)William Kent

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,[4] as well as that to John Dryden in the same church.[5]

Life
Shakespeare memorial in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey

He was born in Antwerp and followed in the footsteps of his father, the sculptor Pieter Scheemaeckers. He served his formal apprenticeship in Copenhagen in Denmark where he studied for four years with the court sculptor Johann Adam Sturmberg (1683–1741).[6]

In 1715 he allegedly walked from Copenhagen to Rome (over 1500 km) where he studied both classical and baroque styles of sculpture. In 1716 he sailed to England and settled in London where he befriended Laurent Delvaux (who had also studied in Rome).[7] 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.[6]

Scheemakers and Delvaux 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. The partners sold their stock in the partnership and travelled to Rome in 1728; Scheemakers stayed there for two years to study both antique and recent masterpieces. Upon his return to England in 1730 he restarted the Millbank workshop (in St Martin's Lane) on his own.[6] 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 in 1740 to Vine Street, where he remained active until his retirement in 1771. On retiral he returned to Antwerp where he died at the age of 90.[6]

He worked for a time with Francis Bird,[7] and was the teacher of Henry Cheere and Charles Cope Trubshaw, amongst others.[2] Joseph Nollekens joined his studio in 1747 and served his apprenticeship here, before leaving for Rome in 1762.[1]

Scheemakers' brother, Henry Scheemakers, and his son, Thomas Scheemakers, were both also sculptors.

Works
Statue of Thomas Guy

Westminster Abbey

Fifteen of Scheemakers' works – monuments, figures and busts – are in Westminster Abbey. Two were executed in collaboration with his master, Delvaux: the "Hugh Chamberlen" (d. 1728, and therefore perhaps produced during his first visit to London); and "Catherine, Duchess of Buckinghamshire". However, he is best known by his monument to William Shakespeare (1740), but, as this work was designed by Kent, the responsibility must not all be laid to Scheemakers' account.

In addition, there are the monuments to Admiral Sir Charles Wager, Vice-Admiral Watson, Lt. General Percy Kirke, George Howe, 3rd Viscount Howe, General Monck, and Sir Henry Belasyse. His busts of John Dryden (1720) and Dr Richard Mead (1754), also in the Abbey, are noted examples of his smaller works.[7] A memorial to Thomas Jordan was created in 1736, to Lord Aubrey Beauclerk in 1741, and to Admiral John Balchen in 1744.

Tombs by Scheemakers in the Abbey include Dr John Woodward (d.1728) and Magdalen Walsh (d.1747). The latter was relocated due to the placement of the Memorial to the Armed Forces in 2008.

Other works in England
Samuel Rolle monument in Chittlehampton Church
William III in Hull
Bacchus, Wrest Park, Bedfordshire

Further works include memorials to the 1st and 2nd Dukes of Ancaster at Edenham, Lincolnshire; Lord Chancellor Hardwicke at Wimpole, Cambridgeshire; the Duke of Kent, his wives and daughters, at Flitton, Bedfordshire; the Earl of Shelburne, at Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; and the figure on the sarcophagus to Montague Sherrard Drake, at Amersham, Buckinghamshire.[7] Another example of his work is the memorial to Topham Foote (or Foot) in the parish church of St John the Baptist Church, Windsor. This burial monument, which includes the young man's bust and the Foote family crest, greets visitors in the main High Street entrance, 300 feet (90 m) from the Henry VIII gate to Windsor Castle. There is also a memorial to Sir Thomas Reeve, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, 1736–37 in the church.[9]

Ireland

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.[10]

He also was the sculptor of fourteen of the busts in the Long Room of the Trinity College Library in Dublin, including James Ussher, William Shakespeare, John Milton, John Locke, Cicero, Homer, Aristotle and Socrates.

On banknotes

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.[11][12]

See also

Notes
  1. Sources differ on his birth date. A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain indicates he was baptised on 10 January 1691,[1] the Netherlands Institute for Art History says he was born on 16 January 1691,[2] whereas Encyclopædia Britannica gives a baptismal date of August 1691.[3]

References
  1. Roscoe, Ingrid; Hardy, Emma; Sullivan, M. G., eds. (2009). "Scheemakers, Peter". A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300149654.
  2. Biographical details at the Netherlands Institute for Art History
  3. Peter Scheemakers at online Encyclopædia Britannica
  4. "Poets' Corner: William Shakespeare". Westminster Abbey. Archived from the original on 26 July 2008.
  5. "John Dryden". Poets' Graves. Retrieved 22 October 2008.
  6. Helena 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.
  7. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Scheemakers, Peter" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  8. Historic England. "Church of St Mary (1024491)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
  9. "Find A Grave: Sir Thomas Reeve". Retrieved 4 February 2021.
  10. Hayton, David (2005). Letters of Marmaduke Coghill, 1722–1738. Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission. p. xxii. ISBN 9781874280682.
  11. "What Did Shakespeare Look Like?". The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Archived from the original on 14 October 2008. Retrieved 17 October 2008.
  12. "Withdrawn Banknotes Reference Guide". Bank of England. Retrieved 22 October 2008.
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