Peter Scheemakers
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Peter Scheemakers (1691 - 1781) was a Flemish sculptor who worked for most of his life in London.
Scheemakers studied in Rome in the late 1720s before settling in London. He is perhaps best known for executing the William Kent-designed sculpture of William Shakespeare which was erected in Westminster Abbey in 1740. He also made a large number of tombs. His memorial to Topham Foote (or Foot) is in the main High Street entrance to St. John the Baptist, the Windsor Parish Church, near Windsor Castle. The burial monument, that includes the young man's bust and the Foote family crest, greets visitors just 300 feet from the Henry VIII gate to the Castle.
Scheemakers was the teacher of Joseph Nollekens, among others. Towards the end of his life, he returned to Antwerp where he had been born, and died there.
Scheemakers brother, Henry Scheemakers, and his son, Thomas Scheemakers, were both also sculptors.