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(1) Peter Anton von Verschaffelt
(b Ghent, 8 May 1710; d Mannheim, 5 April 1793). Sculptor and architect. After training as a sculptor under his uncle Pieter de Sutter (1647–1723), in 1732–3 he worked in Paris with Edme Bouchardon and until 1736 was a pupil at the Académie Royale. In 1737 he went to Rome, where he studied Classical sculpture and the paintings of Raphael and the Carracci family. From c. 1739 he executed his first independent sculptural works, and ‘Pietro il Fiammingo’, as Verschaffelt was subsequently known in Rome, gained important patrons, including Pope Benedict XIV, for whom he created such works as statues of St John the Evangelist (c. 1744; e.g. Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme) and St Paul (1746; Bologna, S Pietro), two Putti with Garlands (1741–2; in situ) for the façade of S Maria Maggiore, a Putto with Tiara (1748; in situ) for Ancona Cathedral, as well as portrait busts and statues of the Pope. His most famous Roman work, the Archangel Michael (1752; Rome, Castel S Angelo) was cast in bronze by Francesco Giardoni (1692–1757). After a brief visit to London in 1752, Verschaffelt became court sculptor to Charles Theodore, Elector Palatine (and Elector of Bavaria from 1777), in Mannheim, for whom he created works of sculpture and architecture reflecting both French neo-Baroque and Roman-inspired classical styles. Among the best-known of his Mannheim works were portrait busts and statues of Charles Theodor and his wife Elisabeth Augusta (examples in Munich, Bayer. Nmus. and Residenzmus.; Speyer, Hist. Mus. Pfalz; Mannheim, Schloss; Ghent, Mus. S. Kst.) and sculptural decoration for the Jesuit church in Mannheim (1754–60; in situ) and Schloss Benrath, near Düsseldorf (c. 1760–75; in situ). He was also responsible for the erection and decoration of the Palais Bretzenheim (1782–8) in Mannheim. Verschaffelt consolidated his fame far beyond Mannheim, especially with the foundation of the Mannheim Zeichnungsakademie and its Antikensaal (dispersed 1803), an important collection of plaster casts of the most famous ancient sculptures.
Part of the Verschaffelt, von family
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