Peter van Dievoet was born into the Van Dievoet family in Brussels and baptised at the Saint Gudula collegiate on 29 June 1661. He was born from the second marriage of Gilles van Dievoet, bourgeois of Brussels, to Gertrude Zeevaert. Gilles van Dievoet had a previous marriage with Catherine Slachmeulder, with whom he had among others: Philippe van Dievoet, goldsmith of King Louis XIV. Peter Van Dievoet was therefore fatherless around the age of twelve or thirteen. His mother later remarried, and died on 22 July 1705. After some time in Brussels, he moved to England where he was a regular visitor to the studio of Grinling Gibbons. In 1686, he cast and made the statue of James II for St. James's Park in London, now in Trafalgar Square. He returned to Brussels due to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In 1695 he was master of the Quatre-Couronnés at Brussels, the guild of stonemasons and sculptors. He was an acclaimed sculptor and was involved in the construction of the new Grand-Place in its baroque style. He was a member then a judge of the Drapery Court of Brussels from 1713 to 1723.
Time in London
According to Edmond Marchal, his most important works are in England and are "among the best of that time". Peter Van Dievoet worked in London in the studio of Quaker sculptor Grinling Gibbons for almost eight years, from 1680 to 1688. His English production remains poorly known because little research has been done to find and inventory it. George Vertue mentions him only as statuary. The same George Vertue, who had found an agreement and a receipt of payment for this work, attributes to him, in collaboration with a certain Laurens of Mechelen, the bronze statue of James II in the courtyard of Whitehall, currently in Trafalgar Square. Margaret Whinney notes that this statue does not have an English but rather a continental character and gives it the same attribution: two Flemings, Laurens of Mechelen and Dievot of Brussels, were employed to model and make it. This attribution is repeated by Sir Lionel Henri Cust: Dyvoet ... and Laurens... who executed the statue of James II at Whitehall. The fore-mentioned Laurens is identified by Paul-Eugène Claessens as the sculptor Laurence Vander Meulen from Mechlin.
Time in Brussels
Having returned to his hometown around 1689, Van Dievoet had to meet the requirements of the corporate institution and enrol in the corporation of the Quatre-Couronnés, the Guild of the stonemasons, of which he was officially received as master in 1695. It is at this date that his work in Brussels begins. That same year, Brussels was destroyed by the French bombardment. Already during his lifetime, Peter Van Dievoet was considered a renowned sculptor. Long after his death, a report of the magistrates of Brussels to Charles-Alexandre of Lorraine, dated 27 September 1771, quotes Peter Van Dievoet in a list of "very remarkable Brussels sculptors". From his Brussels work, we still know only of the pieces mentioned by Guillaume Des Marez, while waiting for other "discoveries" or authentications. He is mainly known there for his realisations and conceptions of many of the guild houses of the famous Grand Place. The following are his work as described by Des Marez.
Wood carving
Peter van Dievoet is also the author of finely chiseled woodcarvings, as shown, for example, by the extremely elaborate lime-wood ornamentation of festoons and fruits, which is preserved at the Royal Museums of Art and History of Brussels. He also carved out of wood, « keerses » which are richly decorated emblems, used for celebrations, for the tailors' guild.
Van Dievoet sculpted the facades of the following guild halls on the Grand Place: La Maison du Sac, La Maison du Cornet, La Maison de l'Arbre d'Or or the House of Brewers, La Maison de la Chaloupe d'Or. He was also the architect for Le Heaume.
Public functions
Peter continued his career by exercising public functions. From 1713 to 1723, between ages 52 and 62, he was one of The Eight and then Dean of the Drapery Court, an old Brussels institution that can be compared to a chamber of commerce, and whose members were called the "brothers of the Guild". At the end of this term, from 1723 to 1724, between ages 62 and 63, he became a member of the magistrate by becoming a Councilor of the City of Brussels. After that, he left public life. A pious man, he had been, until the end of his life, a marguillier of the Sainte-Gudula collegiate, now a cathedral. He died in Brussels on 2 March 1729, at 68.
