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Rachel Ruysch
Dutch, 1664 - 1750
Rachel Ruysch: Still-life with Fruit and Animals, oil on canvas,… Dutch painter. She specialized in still-lifes of flowers and fruits and still-lifes in outdoor settings, the large majority signed, with dated examples from 1681 to 1747 providing a sound chronology. She is widely regarded as the most gifted woman in the history of the subject (see fig.) and among the greatest exponents of either sex. Ruysch came from a distinguished and wealthy background. Her father, Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731), was an eminent professor of anatomy and botany, who published his fine collection of natural curiosities. He was also a gifted amateur painter. Her mother was the daughter of the architect Pieter Post. At the age of 15 Ruysch became a pupil of Willem van Aelst until his death in 1683. In 1693 she married the portrait painter Juriaen Pool (1665–1745), a happy union that produced ten children. In 1709 the couple moved to The Hague, where both artists joined the Guild of St Luke. From 1708 to 1713 they were both court painters to the Elector Palatine, John William, at Düsseldorf, for whom they continued to work until his death in 1716. In that year they returned to Amsterdam, where Ruysch continued working until at least the age of 83. No less than 11 contemporary poets paid tribute to her, in addition to her biographer Jan van Gool, and her wide-reaching fame, coupled with the high value of her works, both of which were established in her lifetime, were sustained after her death.
Rachel Ruysch: Still-life with Flowers and Fruit, oil on canvas,…The typical flower-piece by Ruysch is a conventional bouquet in a vase set on a stone or marble ledge against a plain background (see fig.). The evolution of her work is readily followed in a series of paintings in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where her early bouquet on copper (Grant, no. 137) firmly rooted stylistically and by choice of support in the 17th-century tradition, exemplified by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, contrasts with a bouquet executed in her maturity (1716; Grant, no. 153), of which a replica exists (Oxford, Ashmolean). These two works also illustrate the transition from one century to another, a development keenly noted by the young Jan van Huysum. Rachel Ruysch’s success was based on the sound drawing and technique of the earlier tradition allied to her introduction of an elegant and sophisticated movement and freedom into her composition, whether on a large or small scale. Among the former is a still-life of Flowers (1704; Brussels, Mus. A. Anc.) with fruits on the ledge. The use of the ‘S’ curve is subtle, the whole composition redolent of her excellent taste and restraint. Large flowers are grouped in the centre, with strong lighting; outer flowers and foliage are consequently in shadow, producing a convincing three-dimensional effect, sometimes distorted where backgrounds and shadow have darkened through pigment changes. Her brushstrokes produced petals of great delicacy and softness, particularly in white roses, tulips and anemones, which, allied to an exquisite refinement of colour, gives her autograph work a distinction far removed from that of the many lesser works wrongly attributed to her. In her later work the palette, background and overall tonality are lighter, making her characteristic oranges, pinks and yellows distinctive. The effect is less three-dimensional and more decorative, a development taken to its apogee by van Huysum.
Rachel Ruysch: Still-life with Fruit, Flowers, and Insects, oil on…In her early career, in the 1680s, Ruysch had been intrigued by the work of the recently deceased Otto Marseus van Schrieck, encountered, perhaps, through de Heem and Jean Mignon, as well as through her teacher, van Aelst. She produced a number of still-lifes of plants and fruits in a woodland setting, often with a variety of snakes, toads, moths, grasshoppers and the like, probably working from specimens in her father’s collection (see fig.). Her small-scale paintings of posies of flowers lying on a marble ledge (e.g. Hamburg, Ksthalle) derived from van Aelst but, as with the outdoor scenes, were successfully developed in her own manner. Of her sister, Anna Ruysch (d after 1741), also a painter, there is scant record other than a copy (Karlsruhe, Staatl. Ksthalle) after Mignon’s Woodland Scene with a Squirrel (Brussels, Mus. A. Anc.).
Peter Mitchell. "Ruysch, Rachel." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T074728 (accessed May 8, 2012).
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