It is fair to say that Rachel Ruysch is the most famous painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Already during her lifetime she achieved international fame and was able to sell many of her paintings for a price of over 1000 guilders. Thus, she achieved higher prices than the world-famous painter Rembrandt - he rarely sold a painting for more than 500 guilders during his lifetime.
Ruysch's father was a professor of anatomy and botany. Therefore, he had a rich scientific collection, which included many animal and plant specimens. Rachel Ruysch used this collection for her drawing exercises at a young age. While drawing plants and insects, she learned to depict objects of nature with great accuracy. At the age of 15 she was apprenticed to the still life painter Willem van Aelst. He not only taught her painting techniques, but also showed her how to arrange a bouquet of flowers in a vase so that it looked particularly natural. This technique later helped her to create particularly realistic and three-dimensional images of flowers. At the age of 18, Ruysch was already producing and selling her own works.
She later married portrait painter Juriaen Pool, with whom she had ten children. However, this did not prevent her from continuing to work as a painter and providing a substantial portion of the family's income. Over a period of at least six decades, she created hundreds of paintings, mainly of flowers. She paid great attention to detail. She created each petal individually with careful brushstrokes. By arranging the flowers asymmetrically, she gave her paintings a particularly natural look. She usually designed the background of her paintings in dark colors. This was common practice in the second half of the 17th century. In her early creative period, she also painted many forest pictures, in which mice, lizards, butterflies and mushrooms could be seen. Only later did flowers become the main motif of her works. In 1708 she was called to Düsseldorf to work as a court painter for Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz (called Jan Wellem). She never stayed long in Düsseldorf, however, but had the paintings she had created for the Elector at her home in the Netherlands shipped there. Ruysch remained active for Johann Wilhelm and his wife until his death eight years later, during which time she created some of their best works. Even today, Ruysch is considered by art historians to be one of the most talented still-life artists of all time. When she died in 1750 at the ripe old age of 86, eleven different poets composed poems in her honor.
It is fair to say that Rachel Ruysch is the most famous painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Already during her lifetime she achieved international fame and was able to sell many of her paintings for a price of over 1000 guilders. Thus, she achieved higher prices than the world-famous painter Rembrandt - he rarely sold a painting for more than 500 guilders during his lifetime.
Ruysch's father was a professor of anatomy and botany. Therefore, he had a rich scientific collection, which included many animal and plant specimens. Rachel Ruysch used this collection for her drawing exercises at a young age. While drawing plants and insects, she learned to depict objects of nature with great accuracy. At the age of 15 she was apprenticed to the still life painter Willem van Aelst. He not only taught her painting techniques, but also showed her how to arrange a bouquet of flowers in a vase so that it looked particularly natural. This technique later helped her to create particularly realistic and three-dimensional images of flowers. At the age of 18, Ruysch was already producing and selling her own works.
She later married portrait painter Juriaen Pool, with whom she had ten children. However, this did not prevent her from continuing to work as a painter and providing a substantial portion of the family's income. Over a period of at least six decades, she created hundreds of paintings, mainly of flowers. She paid great attention to detail. She created each petal individually with careful brushstrokes. By arranging the flowers asymmetrically, she gave her paintings a particularly natural look. She usually designed the background of her paintings in dark colors. This was common practice in the second half of the 17th century. In her early creative period, she also painted many forest pictures, in which mice, lizards, butterflies and mushrooms could be seen. Only later did flowers become the main motif of her works. In 1708 she was called to Düsseldorf to work as a court painter for Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz (called Jan Wellem). She never stayed long in Düsseldorf, however, but had the paintings she had created for the Elector at her home in the Netherlands shipped there. Ruysch remained active for Johann Wilhelm and his wife until his death eight years later, during which time she created some of their best works. Even today, Ruysch is considered by art historians to be one of the most talented still-life artists of all time. When she died in 1750 at the ripe old age of 86, eleven different poets composed poems in her honor.
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