Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art
Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art
Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 26th November 2024-16th March 2025
The extraordinary world of the Dutch still life painter Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) is on lavish display at a new exhibition at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. The daughter of the famous Amsterdam professor of anatomy and botany, Frederik Ruysch, Rachel grew up in a ferment of scientific enquiry and discovery. She observed her flowers and insects with precision, but also with a joy in the tactile qualities of the natural world. She incorporated species from the Dutch East Indies, North and South America, brought to Europe in an age of exploration. They include the sinister beauty of the Datura or Devil’s Trumpet Flower, a showy bloom with hallucinogenic properties. Ruysch sometimes pressed real butterflies against wet oil paint to give a ghostly image of their iridescent patterns, blurring the border between reality and imitation.
Rachel Ruysch married the portrait painter Jurian Pool, with whom she had ten children. Her career, however, outstripped that of many of her male colleagues. She was the first female member of Amsterdam’s Confrerie Pictura and in 1708 was appointed Court Painter to the Elector Palatine in Düsseldorf. She could command 1,000 guilders for a painting, but in 1723 won 75,000 guilders on the Dutch State lottery, the equivalent of millions today. Dedicated to her profession, she nevertheless continued to paint until the age of eighty-three, three years before her death in 1750. Even in her day she was celebrated by poets and biographers as the ‘Amsterdam Pallas’.
Two paintings formerly with Richard Green have been generously lent to the exhibition by their current owners. The magnificent Still life of roses, tulips, a sunflower and other flowers epitomizes the grandest stage of Dutch flower painting in the Golden Age. It was made in 1710, when Ruysch was at the height of her powers and celebrated across Europe as Court Painter to the Elector Palatine. The dazzling sunflower at the foot of the bouquet, with a bee perched on it, has become a leitmotif of the show, appearing on the banners and other publicity material.
Different again in spirit is the Still life of a bouquet of pink and white roses and other flowers in a glass vase, with a bird’s nest, made in 1738, when Ruysch was seventy-four years old. The delicately-ruffled, rounded blooms and brighter, blonder palette show her responding to the currents of the Rococo emanating from France. The elegant S-curve of the composition sends a gentle, warm breeze through the bouquet. Rachel Ruysch, child of a scientific household, retained a desire to experiment throughout her long career.
The exhibition travels to the Toledo Museum of Art, 13th April-27th July 2025 and to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in the autumn of 2025.
Rachel Ruysch, Still life of roses, tulips, a sunflower and other flowers in a glass vase with a bee, butterfly and other insects upon a marble ledge.
Signed and dated lower right: Rachel Ruysch/1710.
Oil on canvas: 88.9 x 71.1 cm / 35 3/8 x 28 in.
Collection of Janice and Brian Capstick, on loan to the National Gallery, London.
Rachel Ruysch, Still life of a bouquet of pink and white roses, poppy anemones, primroses, forget-me-nots, jonquils, daffodils, snowballs, honeysuckle and a tulip in a glass vase, with a bird’s nest.
Signed and dated upper left: Rachel Ruysch /1738.
Oil on canvas: 17 ¼ x 15 ¼ in / 44 x 39 cm.
Private collection, USA.