Pieter Rijsbraeck

Pieter Rijsbraeck (1655–1729) was a Flemish landscape painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He had an international career which brought him to England and Paris. His sons Pieter Andreas Rysbrack and John Michael Rysbrack were respectively a successful painter and sculptor in England in the 18th century.

Life Pieter Rijsbraeck was born in Antwerp where he was baptized on 25 April 1655. He was the son of Andries Rijsbraeck en Adriana Likens. He studied painting under the landscape painter Philips Augustijn Immenraet and was registered as a pupil in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1672–1673. Not long after he left for England where he was active from c. 1675 to 1678.

He returned to Antwerp where he became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke in 1677–78. Not long after he left Antwerp again, this time for Paris where he was active for about ten years. Here he married Genoveva Compagnon, the widow of the Antwerp sculptor Philippe de Buyster who had died in Paris in 1688.

Pieter Rijsbraeck returned to Antwerp in 1689 (or possibly 1692) and was registered again as a master in the local Guild. His wife died in 1719.

After many years of activity in Antwerp he moved to Brussels in 1720. He died in Brussels in 1729.