Rachel Ruysch

(Netherlands, 03/06/1664 - 12/10/1750)

Still-Life with Flower Bouquet and Plums (1704)

Born in 1664 into a family steeped in scientific and artistic curiosity, Ruysch was fascinated by the preserved specimens and botanical illustrations she found in the cabinet of curiosities belonging to her botanist father, and was encouraged to incorporate them into her artistic pursuits by sketching the plants, shells, flowers and insects she found.

At the age of fifteen, Ruysch began her formal artistic training as an apprentice to Willem van Aelst, a well-known flower painter in Amsterdam, where she honed her talent for capturing the delicate textures, vibrant colours and intricate structures of flowers, fruits and insects. She soon developed a unique style that combined scientific precision with artistic elegance, gaining a reputation for her intricate floral compositions and distinguishing her work from her contemporaries.

Unlike many still-life painters, Ruysch infused her dramatic arrangements of flowers with a sense of movement and life, incorporating curling tendrils, fluttering butterflies and the subtle decay of petals to suggest the passage of time and the cycle of life and death.

In 1701, Ruysch became a member of The Hague painters’ guild and was invited to serve as court painter to the Elector Palatine in Düsseldorf, a prestigious appointment she held for over a decade until 1716. There she produced sumptuous, large-scale floral still lifes for the court, works that demonstrated her unrivalled skill in orchestrating complexity without losing clarity or grace. Remarkably, she continued to paint and exhibit throughout her life while raising ten children – a rare feat for a woman in the male-dominated art world of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Ruysch’s career, spanning over six decades, was one of the most artistically and financially successful of the Dutch Golden Age, regardless of the artist’s gender. During her lifetime, her works fetched prices as high as 1200 guilders, significantly higher than the work of her contemporaries, who included the likes of Rembrandt. As collectors across Europe sought her works, her name became synonymous with refinement, accuracy and elegance in still-life painting.

Today, Ruysch is celebrated not only for her technical mastery, but also for her ability to elevate still-life into a poetic exploration of nature’s beauty and transience, and her works can be found in major museum collections around the world including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Louvre in Paris and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., ensuring that her legacy continues to inspire artists and admirers alike.

Image: Rachel Ruysch, Still-Life with Flower Bouquet and Plums (1704). Oil on canvas, 92 x 70 cm. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.