Mythological clay - Hercules, terracotta, by John Michael Rysbrack, 1745

 

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John Michael Rysbrack (né Jan Michiel Rijsbrack; 24 June 1694, Antwerp - 8 January 1770, London), Flemish sculptor, who spent most of his career in England, where he was one of the foremost sculptors of monuments, architectural decorations, and portraits in the first half of the eighteenth century. The son of the landscape painter Pieter Rijsbraeck, both of his brothers were painters, as well. He was apprenticed to the Antwerp sculpture master Michiel van der Voort the Elder from 1706 to 1712, and became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp in 1714-15; none of his works from this period have been preserved. Along with his older brother, he moved to England about 1720 where they subsequently built successful careers; their younger brother later joined them. In London, the sculptor quickly established himself as the leading figure in his field, a position he was to retain until the mid-1740s, remaining one of the top three sculptors in Britain until shortly before his death. He also operated an important workshop with many assistants, including other Flemish sculptors such as Gaspar van der Hagen and James Francis Verskovis; the workshop's output left an important imprint on the practice of sculpture in England. Rysbrack produced portraits and monuments of lively baroque composition, executing busts and funerary monuments of many of the most prominent men of his day, including the monument to Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey - he created upwards of sixteen monuments for the Abbey - as well as a statue of Marlborough, and busts of Walpole, Bolingbroke, and Pope. He was responsible for the bronze equestrian statue of William III in Queen Square, Bristol, erected in 1733. He died in Vere Street, Westminster, at the age of seventy-five and is buried in St Marylebone Parish Church.