Abundance, or perhaps Charity

This is the model for an allegorical figure on the monument to the 2nd Lord Raymond (d. 1756) in the church of St Lawrence, Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire. This small-scale terracotta model would have been part of the design process for the finished marble tomb.

Peter Scheemakers was one of the leading sculptors working in Britain in the mid-18th century, and was renowned for his tombs and portrait busts in particular.

His training in the Netherlands would have included the modelling of terracottas, and this piece exemplifies his fluid drapery style, as well as his tendency to give the figure a slightly stiff pose.

Peter Scheemakers (1691-1781) was born in Antwerp and trained under his father, the sculptor Peter Scheemaekers the Elder (1652-1714). Scheemakers was in London by 1721, where he first collaborated with Pieter-Denis Plumier (1688-1721) and Laurent Delvaux (1696-1778) on the monument to John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham, for Westminster Abbey. Scheemakers continued in partnership with Delvaux, carving funerary monuments as well as garden statuary. They went together to Rome in 1728, where Scheemakers remained for two years before returning to England in 1730 and setting up an independent workshop. He spent the rest of his working life in England, concentrating on monuments and portrait busts