Rachel Ruysch

In the still life paintings of Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750), floral bouquets appear alive and rich with movement: petals and stems droop and rise and colorful lizards crawl across stone ledges set against dark backgrounds. These astonishing displays, rendered with a skill that eclipsed many of her male contemporaries, earned Ruysch fame across Europe in her lifetime—an era when few women attained artistic prominence.

As global trade routes expanded in the 17th century, thousands of new plant specimens arrived in the Netherlands for cultivation in greenhouses and botanical gardens. Ruysch was among the first artists to introduce new species, from passionflowers to cacti, into her flower still lifes. Merging art and science, these paintings are far from just decorative; they’re riddles, hints of a deeper understanding of the natural world. They speak of survival and loss, the delicate balance between beauty and violence, and the deeper narratives of colonial expansion unfolding beneath the surface.