Rachel Ruysch was not only an exceptionally talented painter, but also a pioneer in the male-dominated art world of the 17th century. As an internationally acclaimed flower painter, she proved how artistic brilliance and personal success could be combined. […]

Rachel Ruysch was not only an exceptionally talented painter, but also a pioneer in the male-dominated art world of the 17th century. As an internationally acclaimed flower painter, she proved how artistic brilliance and personal success could be combined. Rachel Ruysch was unusual in many areas. It is not only her outstanding artistic skills that make her an icon. It is also impressive that she managed to position herself in the male-dominated art scene. In 1701, the most famous female painter of the Dutch Golden Age became the first female member of Pictura, an artists’ association that aimed to protect painters in The Hague and strengthen relationships between its members. During this time, her magnificent, lush paintings of flowers, fruit, butterflies and beetles made her internationally famous. Later she was also court painter in Düsseldorf. Although she had 10 children, her career progressed steadily. A lottery win in 1723 secured the successful artist additional wealth.
In other words, Rachel Ruysch was one of the most successful artists in history. She could therefore afford to produce only a few paintings a year, as her works were soon in high demand as valuable collector’s items. The lush colors of the flowers, the exotic fruits and the lifelike beetles and butterflies delighted the art public even during Ruysch’s lifetime. The paintings feature pomegranates, melons and figs in bright colors, as well as a blue lizard or a particularly colorful butterfly. The artworks of the time served not only as decoration, but also as a way for the patrons to show off their wealth through the trade in exotic goods and their connections to the colonies.

Despite the artist’s prominence – her works can be found in the most important art collections – her work has hardly been researched. With “Rachel Ruysch – Nature into Art”, the Alte Pinakothek is showing the world’s first retrospective from November 26, 2024. The show is a collaboration with the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio) and Museum of Fine Arts (Boston). Visitors first learn that Rachel already showed remarkable artistic talent as a child. She began her professional training with the most famous still life painter in Amsterdam at the time, Van Aelst. His flowers are often arranged in reflective glass or metal vessels, and the composition follows a dynamic arrangement of objects – flowers, insects and leaves. The young Rachel Ruysch was inspired by this, but soon developed further developments. She was praised by art critics for far surpassing her teacher and colleagues.
She also took other famous still life painters as her role models. Her early works include forest floor still lifes, a variant inspired by Jan Davidsz. de Heem. and Otto Marseus van Schrieck. She always copied individual elements with the aim of adapting and improving the composition, colors and lighting to suit her own style.

Rachel Ruysch was born in The Hague on June 3, 1664. In the preceding decades, the economic prosperity of the Netherlands had been boosted by trade in goods from the colonies. This created a wealthy public who liked to show off their prosperity with high-quality paintings. Painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijin and Frans Hals marked the exceptional status of the Netherlands as an artistic superpower. However, a period of economic stagnation followed towards the end of the 17th century due to wars. This led to a decline in purchasing power and subsequently in interest in art. Nevertheless, Rachel Ruysch was able to make a name for herself in the art world during this period.
The daughter of botany and anatomy professor Frederik Ruysch and Maria Post, whose family included painters and architects, she received a solid education and support. It is obvious that her father’s scientific collection became a major source of inspiration for Rachel Ruysch’s artistic work at a very early stage. He had invented a special type of preservation that kept the objects particularly “lifelike”. He preserved his specimens in alcohol and black pepper after injecting tallow, wax and cinnabar into the vascular system. His daughter was able to help him and thus had a direct connection to the objects. There are also examples of such preparations in the exhibition.
From childhood, she was embedded in an artistic and intellectual environment, and at the age of 15 she began her artistic training with the aforementioned Willem Van Aelst. Anna, her younger sister, also learned to paint there. The paintings of the sisters are similar in their choice of subject and artistic skill, but they differ in their color temperature. The approximately 20 surviving paintings by Anna are in cooler colors, and the dynamics of the stems and calyxes also have different nuances. Rachel continued to work as an artist and never stopped learning, but no further works of art are known of her sister after her marriage and the takeover of her husband’s paint business.

The exhibition not only sheds light on the artist’s biography, work and environment, but is also dedicated to the connections between art and science during this period. In addition, the show contextualizes Rachel Ruysch’s relationships with other renowned still life painters and places her in dialogue with her teachers and colleagues: Paintings by Willem van Aelst, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Otto Marseus van Schrieck and Abraham Mignon as well as Maria van Oosterwijck, Alida Withoos and her sister Anna Ruysch are also included.
The works on display come from international public and private collections, and some new discoveries are also on show. Portraits of Rachel Ruysch, her family and her father as well as books, prints, drawings and scientific exhibits create a richly furnished setting. In addition, interdisciplinary collaborations from the fields of botany, zoology and the history of science place the work in relation to the scientific discoveries and debates of her time. This shows that women also played an important role in the exploration of nature.

There is no reference to the origin of Dutch prosperity from the colonies in the exhibition – but this would be important for the context. The Dutch Golden Age was characterized by science, cartography and trade knowledge. Information about trade routes, slave markets and colonial exploitation was present in trade and scientific circles. It can be assumed that Dutch citizens and artists of the 17th century were aware of colonialism and the slave trade, and that wealth from the colonies was seen as a natural part of Dutch prosperity and national identity. At that time, there was no broad public or artistic debate in society about the moral and social implications of slavery and colonialism. This has since changed. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a route called “Colonialism in the Museum”, which shows works of art with links to the colonial history of the Netherlands.
A critical classification of the work in the context of colonialism opens up an additional perspective that goes beyond the exhibition presented. While the exhibition primarily highlights the high level of artistry and the convincing aesthetics of Rachel Ruysch’s oeuvre, the artist’s work can also be read as a starting point for further discussion on the intertwining of art and global history.

The Alte Pinakothek offers a varied accompanying program ranging from concerts to “Art, Wine and Musette”, as well as talks and workshops such as “Arranging Flowers” or “From Still Life to Container Painting”. A special artistic installation can be experienced in the foyer until Friday, 29.11.2024: Dutch florist Florian Seyd from The Wunderkammer has designed a flower tunnel for the Ruysch exhibition, which brings the beauty and effect of flowers to life in a unique way.

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