Jointly organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, and the Toledo Museum of Art, Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art will be the first monographic exhibition dedicated to the outstanding Dutch flower painter Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750). Despite her prodigious talent and her commercial and critical success during her lifetime, Ruysch, as many other female artists through history, has been neglected by scholars and has never been the subject of a major exhibition. This project aims to reestablish her as one of the foremost still life painters in European art and highlight her role as an influential member of a vibrant Dutch scientific community.Ruysch achieved fame across Europe for her detailed paintings of nature that depict an astonishing variety of accurately rendered flowers, fruits, and insects. She painted over 130 exceptional paintings over a 7-decade long career. Comprising around 60 works, this exhibition will feature 35 of her finest paintings, portraits of Rachel Ruysch, her family, and her father, and still lifes by her contemporaries. To situate Ruysch’s works in the context of 17th- and 18th- century botanical discovery and colonial expansion, the exhibition will also include important botanical drawings and illustrated books, and natural specimens. More than any of her peers, Ruysch included non-native species in her still lifes that had only just arrived in the Netherlands. The request of this loan is for Boston only.
