Petrus Johannes van Reysschoot

[3] In England he painted history and sporting (i.e. hunting) scenes and was a portrait painter working on commissions particularly from the Midlands gentry.

On 4 April of that year he attended, as godfather, the baptism of his nephew Petrus Norbertus van Reysschoot, who would become a prominent painter and art educator.

By that time he must have already have become wealthy as he bought from his seven co-heirs, for the sum of 550 livres, the paternal house called ‘de Maeght van Ghendt’’ in the Overpoortstraat, a property burdened with heavy debts.

By an act of the States dated 29 January 1744, the entire commission was awarded to Petrus Johannes van Reysschoot who at the time was still in London.

The governor of the Southern Netherlands Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine visited Ghent in September 1752 and participated in the jay-shooting of the local crossbowmen's guild of Saint George.

Van Reysschoot was commissioned to paint a record of this feat that included portraits of the key members of the crossbowmen’s guild.

An example is the Fête champêtre with ladies seated by a tree and figures from the commedia dell'arte (Christie's London, South Kensington 30 October 2002 lot 86).