The Fitzwilliam Museum - University of Cambridge

Peeter Scheemaeckers the Elder
(1652–1714)
Virgin and Child
c. 1702
Terracotta
H. 70 cm, W. 49.5 cm
Purchased from the Boscawen
Fund with a grant from The Art
Fund.
M.1- 2006
Born in Antwerp in 1652, Peter
Scheemaeckers was one of the most
brilliant Flemish sculptors of his time. After
serving his apprenticeship with his uncle,
Peeter Verbrugghen, he worked mainly for
churches in his native city or in Brabant,
and created some splendid and dramatic
funerary monuments for private patrons.
This highly finished terracotta Virgin and
Child was the model for a larger wood
carving commissioned in 1702 by the
Duchess of Arenburg for the church of St
Martin at Heers in the province of
Limburg. After her death the terracotta
descended in the family of her husband,
the Comte de Rivière, until the 19th
century. The Virgin sits on a bank of
clouds with emerging cherub’s heads on
either side, and places her arm protectively
around the Christ Child. Her right foot
rests on a serpent and a crescent moon,
symbols of her Immaculate Conception,
and triumph over sin, referred to in the
Book of Revelations. The composition
exemplifies Scheemaecker’s graceful but
vigorous late Baroque style, and its
acquisition brings a new dimension to the
Fitzwilliam’s small but notable collection of
terracottas which had previously lacked a
work by a Flemish sculptor. In the context
of English sculpture, Scheemaeckers is
important as the father and master of
Peter Scheemakers (1691–1781) who had a
successful career as a monumental and
portrait sculptor in England between about
1721 and his retirement to Antwerp in 1771.
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Major Acquisitions