Rachel Ruysch (3 June 1664 – 12 October 1750)
[ was a Dutch still-life painter from the ]Northern Netherlands
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
. She specialized in flowers, inventing her own style and achieving international fame in her lifetime. Due to a long and successful career that spanned over six decades, she became the best documented woman painter of the Dutch Golden Age.
Personal life and career
Rachel Ruysch was born on 3 June 1664 in The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
to the scientist Frederik Ruysch
Frederik Ruysch (; March 28, 1638 – February 22, 1731) was a Dutch botanist and anatomist. He is known for developing techniques for preserving anatomical specimens, which he used to create dioramas or scenes incorporating human parts. His ana ...
and Maria Post, the daughter of the architect Pieter Post
Pieter Post in 1651. Portrait by Pieter Nolpe, detail of a larger work
Pieter Jansz Post (1 May 1608 – buried 8 May 1669) was a Dutch Golden Age architect, painter and printmaker.
Biography
Post was baptised in Haarlem, the son of a ...
. Her father was also a professor of anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...
and botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
and an amateur painter. He had a vast collection of animal skeletons, and mineral and botany samples which Rachel used to practice her drawing skills. At a young age she began to paint the flowers and insects of her father's collection in the popular manner of Otto Marseus van Schrieck
Otto Marseus van Schrieck (ca. 1613, in Nijmegen – buried 22 June 1678, in Amsterdam) was a painter in the Dutch Golden Age. He is best known for his paintings of forest flora and fauna.
Biography
Marseus van Schrieck spent the years 1652 ...
. Working from these samples Rachel matched her father's ability to depict nature with great accuracy. Later, as Rachel became more accomplished, she taught her father (and also her sister, Anna Ruysch
Anna Ruysch (baptized 19 December 1666, in The Hague – buried 7 January 1754, in Amsterdam) was a Dutch Golden Age flower painter.
Life
Anna Ruysch (sometimes called Anna Elisabeth Ruysch) was the daughter of Maria Post and Frederik Ruysch, a ...
) how to paint.
In 1679, at age fifteen, Ruysch was apprenticed to , a prominent flower painter in Amsterdam. His studio in Amsterdam looked out over the studio of the flower painter Maria van Oosterwijck
Maria van Oosterwijck, also spelled Oosterwyck, (1630–1693) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, specializing in richly detailed flower paintings and other still lifes.
Life and work
Maria van Oosterwijck was born in 1630 in Nootdorp, a town locat ...
. Ruysch studied with van Aelst until his death in 1683. Besides painting technique he taught her how to arrange a bouquet in a vase so it would look spontaneous and less formalized. This technique produced a more realistic and three-dimensional effect in her paintings. By the time Ruysch was eighteen she was producing and selling independently signed works. She would also have known and consorted with the flower painters Jan
Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to:
Acronyms
* Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN
* Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code
* Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group
* Japanese Article Num ...
and Maria Moninckx
Maria Moninckx (22 April 1673 (baptised) - 26 February 1757 (buried)) was a Dutch botanical artist and painter, best known for the colour plates she and her father, Jan Moninckx, created and which make up the nine-volume ''Moninckx Atlas''. Th ...
, Alida Withoos
Alida Withoos (c. 1661/62 – 5 December 1730 (buried)) was a Dutch botanical artist and painter. She was the daughter of the painter Matthias Withoos.
Life
Alida Withoos was born in Amersfoort. With three brothers Johannes, Pieter, Frans, and ...
, and Johanna Helena Herolt-Graff, who all were about her age and who worked for the hortus owner Agnes Block
Agnes, or Agneta Block (29 October 1629, Emmerich am Rhein – 20 April 1704, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Mennonite art collector and horticulturalist. She is most remembered as the compiler of an album of flower and insect paintings.
Life
Agneta Bl ...
and who, like her father, also worked with the plant collectors Jan and Caspar Commelin
Caspar Commelijn or Caspar Commelin (14 October 1668 Amsterdam – 25 December 1731 Amsterdam), was a Dutch botanist.
Life and work
He was the son of the bookseller, historian and publisher, Casparus Commelijn and his first wife, Margrieta Heyd ...
.
In 1693 she married the Amsterdam portrait
A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...
painter Juriaen Pool
Juriaen Pool (bapt. 17 January 1666, Amsterdam – 6 October 1745, Amsterdam), was an 18th-century painter from the Northern Netherlands best known as the husband of Rachel Ruysch, with whom he had ten children.
Biography
According to the ...
, with whom she had ten children. Throughout her marriage and adult life she continued to paint and produce commissions for an international circle of patrons. Other women at this time were expected to participate in art forms more traditionally practiced by women, such as sewing and spinning. Ruysch continued working as a painter after she married, mostly likely because her contribution to the family's income allowed them to hire help to care for their children.
Ruysch died in Amsterdam on 12 October 1750. After her death, despite changing attitudes about flower paintings, Ruysch has maintained a strong reputation.
Works
It is unknown whether Ruysch was a member of the Amsterdam Guild of Saint Luke
The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was ide ...
, but early signed works by her in the 1680s show the influence of Otto Marseus van Schrieck. By 1699 she and her family had moved to The Hague, where she was offered membership in the Confrerie Pictura
The Confrerie Pictura was a more or less academic club of artists founded in 1656 in The Hague (the Netherlands) by local art painters, who were unsatisfied by the Guild of Saint Luke there.
History
The guild of St. Luke in the Hague existed a ...
as their first female member. In 1701 she and her husband became members of The Hague Painter's Guild. In 1708, Ruysch was invited to work for the court in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
and serve as court painter to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine
Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine (''"Jan Wellem"'' in Low German, English: ''"John William"''; 19 April 1658 – 8 June 1716) of the Wittelsbach dynasty was Elector Palatine (1690–1716), Duke of Palatinate-Neuburg, Neuburg (1690–1716), ...
.[ She obtained a contract for works painted at home that she periodically brought to Düsseldorf.][ She continued working for him and his wife from 1708 until the prince's death in 1716.
Art historians consider Ruysch to be one of the most talented still life artists of either sex.] By the time of her death at age 86 she had produced hundreds of paintings, of which more than 250 have been documented or are attributed to her.
Her dated works establish that she painted from the age of 15 until she was 83, a few years before her death. Historians are able to establish this with certainty because she included her age when signing her paintings.
Style
Ruysch had a very good understanding of drawing and the techniques of earlier traditions. This knowledge improved her painting abilities. Stylistically, her artwork, with its playful composition and brilliant colors, was part of the rococo
Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...
movement. She paid extensive attention to all details in her work. Every petal was created painstakingly with delicate brushwork. The background of Ruysch's paintings are usually dark which was the fashion for flower painting in the second half of the 17th century. Her asymmetrical compositions with drooping flowers and wild stems created paintings that seemed to possess a great energy about them.
In her early work Ruysch painted a large number of forest floor
The forest floor, also called detritus, duff and the O horizon, is one of the most distinctive features of a forest ecosystem. It mainly consists of shed vegetative parts, such as leaves, branches, bark, and stems, existing in various stage ...
pictures that feature small animals, reptiles, butterflies, and fungi
A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...
. She later adopted flower painting as her main concern and continued to paint until her death, thus continuing the 17th-century style right down to the middle of the following century.
Ruysch's skill lay in the minute observation of each flower in an extremely naturalistic way, composed into an elaborate arrangement that would be very difficult to achieve in nature – the flowers would not support each other so well under such an arrangement. In common with most flower pieces from the last third of the 17th century, the colours of the flowers are much more carefully balanced than in the earlier pictures.
The symbolism of each flower was elaborately developed in the 17th century, but most of this concerned the introduction of a single flower into a Vanitas
A ''vanitas'' (Latin for 'vanity') is a symbolic work of art showing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, often contrasting symbols of wealth and symbols of ephemerality and death. Best-known are ''van ...
piece. Apart from Jan van Huysum
Jan van Huysum (or Jan van Huijsum) (15 April 1682 – 8 February 1749) is the most notable member of the Van Huysum family of artists working in Dutch Golden Age of the 17th and 18th centuries; “by common consent, Jan van Huysum has been held ...
, no 18th-century flower painter matched the skill of Rachel Ruysch.
Reception
Ruysch enjoyed great fame and reputation in her lifetime. When she died in 1750, eleven poets paid her their respects with poems about her. In the 17th century the Dutch were very interested in flowers and gardening, so paintings that highlighted the beauty of nature were highly valued. This helped to build and maintain Ruysch's clientele throughout her career. In her lifetime her paintings were sold for prices as high as 750–1200 guilder
Guilder is the English translation of the Dutch and German ''gulden'', originally shortened from Middle High German ''guldin pfenninc'' "gold penny". This was the term that became current in the southern and western parts of the Holy Roman Empir ...
s. In comparison, Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
rarely received more than 500 guilders for a painting in his lifetime.
In 1999 a painting by Ruysch was discovered in a farmhouse in Normandy and was sold at auction for 2.9 million French francs, about US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
508,000.
In March 2021, Ruysch's work was added to the "Gallery of Honour" at the Rijksmuseum. Ruysch, Gesina ter Borch
Gesina ter Borch (Deventer 15 November 1631 – Zwolle 16 April 1690) was a Dutch Golden Age watercolorist and draftswoman, whose work mostly consists of watercolor paintings in albums. Most of her work captured her observations of family life, ...
, and Judith Leyster
Judith Jans Leyster (also Leijster; baptised July 28, 1609Molenaer, JudithNational Gallery of Art website. Accessed February 1, 2014. – February 10, 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works, portraits, and still lifes. Her work was h ...
are the first women to be included in the gallery.
Gallery
File:Rachel Ruysch Flowers on a Tree Trunk.jpg, Flowers on a tree trunk; this is a typical example of the "forest floor" genre made popular by Marseus van Schrieck
File:Blumenstilleben.jpg, Flowers on a stone slab - her most common style around 1700
File:Rachel Ruysch - Basket of Flowers - WGA20551.jpg, Basket of Flowers, 1711
File:Målning. Blomsterstycke. Rachel Ruysch - Hallwylska museet - 86742.tif, Still-Life with Flowers
File:RRuysch.jpg, Rachel Ruysch, ''Still-Life with Bouquet of Flowers and Plums'', 1704, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België) are a group of art museums in Brussels, Belgium. They include six museums: the Oldmasters Muse ...
References
External links
*
*
Old Masters: Overlooked Women Artists
Works and literature on Rachel Ruysch
at PubHist
Flowers in an Urn Zoomable
at google
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruysch, Rachel
1664 births
1750 deaths
18th-century Dutch painters
18th-century Dutch women artists
Painters from Amsterdam
Artists from The Hague
Court painters
Dutch still life painters
Dutch women painters
Flower artists
Painters from The Hague
Sibling artists