Historic Churches of Buckinghamshire

Historic Churches of Buckinghamshire is a project launched in 2018, with only a few churches included at the moment.


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John Michael Rysbrack

Johannes Michel or John Michael Rysbrack, original name Jan Michiel Rijsbrack (27 June 1694 - 8 January 1770), was an 18th-century Flemish sculptor. His birth-year is sometimes (wrongly) given as 1693 or 1684. Rysbrack was born in Antwerp as the son of the landscape painter Pieter Rijsbraeck. His older brother Pieter Andreas Rijsbrack was a landscape and still life painter and a younger brother Gerard Rijsbrack was a still life and sports painter. He studied drawings by Italian masters, before settling in London in 1720. Here he quickly established himself as the leading sculptor, 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 produced vivid portraits and monuments of lively baroque composition, rapidly establishing himself as a highly sought-after sculptor. He executed busts and funerary monuments of many of the most prominent men of his day, including the monument to Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey, a statue of Marlborough, and busts of Walpole, Bolingbroke, and Pope. Dr Cox Macro commissioned him to make a bust of Flemish painter Peter Tillemans on his death in 1734.

 One Church with features by John Michael Rysbrack - Sculptor

Church Thumbnail
(Click Image to Enlarge)		 Features
 
St Mary the Virgin Addington
Image © Michael G Hardy, 1996
†1725 made 1753: Monument - Rev Thomas Busby & wife Ann. He was the son of Sir John Busby, and Rector of Addington from 1693 until his death in 1725, She died in 1745. Their Monument was not erected until 1753. Sculptor was John Michael Rysbrack. (signed and dated by Rysbrack).
The monument was not erected until 28 and 8 years after the deaths of Rev Thomas and Ann Busby.
St Mary the Virgin Addington
Image © Michael G Hardy, 1996
A putto stands by a broken column, which represents the broken Busby line, as Thomas Busby had no son. The putto holds a snake biting its own tail. Such a snake is a symbol of birth, death and re-birth.
St Mary the Virgin Addington
Image © Michael G Hardy, 1996
The Inscription tells us that the monument was erected by Thomas and Ann's two daughters (Anne and Jane) in 1753.
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Historic Churches of Buckinghamshire

All photographs by Michael G Hardy unless stated otherwise


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