Rachel Ruysch

Rachel Ruysch was raised in a household where art and science were deeply intertwined. Her mother, Maria Post, came from a family of prominent artists. Her father, Frederik Ruysch, was a professor of anatomy and botany in Amsterdam and taught at the Hortus Botanicus . He collected botanical, zoological and anatomical specimens. He developed a preservation technique – one he kept highly secret – that ensured his specimens retained their natural colour and remained remarkably lifelike.

At the age of 15, Ruysch and her family relocated from The Hague to Amsterdam, where she trained with the still life painter Willem van Aelst. His influence is evident in her floral compositions , particularly in her use of diagonal arrangements of flowers in various shapes and sizes. Early in her artistic development, she set herself apart from her contemporaries by incorporating not only common flower species and insects into her still lifes, but also rare specimens seldom seen in the Netherlands.

Ruysch’s floral still lifes emerged from a deep-rooted fascination for and knowledge of nature. She closely studied flora and fauna in her father’s collection, visited the gardens of the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, and consulted books and prints featuring botanical illustrations. She documented her observations in drawings, which served as preliminary studies for her paintings. Her paintings testify to her deep interest in botany and her connections in a network of botanical scholars, collectors and illustrators.

Ruysch continued to evolve as an artist, adapting to the demands of the art market. In her early career, she created forest floors featuring crawling insects and reptiles, as well as flower garlands. She also painted nosegays – hand-tied bouquets of common varieties of flowers and grasses – draped gracefully upon a tabletop. Later on she shifted her focus to lavish floral arrangements in classical vases, showcasing a rich variety of flowers and grasses. Responding to the preference for symmetrical display, she also produced paired paintings, combining floral still lifes with fruit still lifes.

For the attentive viewer, Ruysch’s still lifes reveal miniature worlds where life thrives among the leaves. She rendered the flowers, snakes, snails and insects with such accuracy and detail that they remain recognizable even today. In some of her works, nature makes a literal appearance, as Ruysch incorporated real butterfly wings and created impressions with moss.

Ruysch’s reputation and client base must surely have been boosted in 1701, when she and her husband, fellow artist Jurriaan Pool , joined Confrerie Pictura in The Hague . At this society, which included not only artists but also many art lovers, Ruysch had the opportunity to meet potential clients from The Hague’s elite. Ruysch was the first woman to be admitted to the club and she remained a member for 20 years. The membership fee required an artwork for display in the club’s meeting room. Ruysch and Pool’s jointly submitted one of Ruysch’s floral still lifes for this purpose. Her painting was hailed as the most beautiful among all the exhibited works.

The many poems praising Ruysch’s work bear witness to the success she enjoyed in her own lifetime. Contemporaries admired the precision and realism in her paintings. A special tribute was the collection of poems published in 1750, shortly before her passing, which celebrated her artistic talent. The book was a collection of all previously published odes to Ruysch and her work. Never before had a Dutch artist been honoured in this way.

The German Elector Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz became acquinted with Ruysch’s work when he visited her father’s collection in 1695. Shortly thereafter, in 1708, he appointed her court painter in Düsseldorf, where he and his wife, Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, assembled an extensive art collection. While continuing to live with her family in Amsterdam, Ruysch sent the couple one painting every year for nine years.

Ruysch’s paintings were highly sought after, not only by affluent citizens in Dutch cities like Amsterdam and Leiden, but also by princely courts in German-speaking regions, who enriched their art collections with her still lifes. Her appointment at the court of Palatine Elector Johann von der Pfalz undoubtedly helped expand her reputation in neighbouring German-speaking regions, where many of her paintings are still in private and public collections. Today, her paintings can be admired in museum across Europe and the United States.

Aert Schouman immortalised Ruysch at the age of 86 in a portrait he created at her home. She continued to paint throughout the last years of her life, revisiting the (floral compositions of the) nosegays she had created at the start of her career. Ruysch had a keen sense of evolving tastes and growing preferences for more decorative paintings. In her later pieces, she illuminated her flowers more evenly and opted for lighter backgrounds.