Pieter Andreas Rijsbrack

Pieter Andreas Rijsbrack (1685 or 1690 – 1748) (sometimes Anglicized as Peter Rysbrack)[1] was a Flemish painter of still lifes and landscapes who was active in England in the first half of the 18th century.

He married the same year in Antwerp to Maria Anna van de Wee, the widow of the printmaker Cornelis Vermeulen.

[3] Rijsbrack thus took his place in a long tradition of Flemish painters who made topographical paintings of the estates of the British nobility which includes artists such as Jan Siberechts, Peter Tillemans and Hendrik Frans de Cort.

[5] The series of paintings had an important influence on the fashion for sets of garden views that emerged in the second quarter of the 18th century and gained further popularity with the rise of the picturesque movement.

He also included scenes of animals, gardeners and 'polite society' in the landscape thus introducing French influences into English painting and adding an element of social discourse.

Rijsbrack's painting series forms an important historical document showing various phases of Lord Burlington's remodelling of the grounds at Chiswick before William Kent's interventions of the 1730s.

The earliest one predates Burlington's reworking of the site, while the other two comprise a large bird-view prospect and a smaller view showing the Inigo Jones inspired rear portico.

[8] At international auctions landscape paintings of Rijsbrack more reminiscent of the classicizing style of his father are regularly offered for sale.

A work in a similar style entitled A Southern Landscape with Muleteers is part of the collection at the National Trust, Hatchlands.