Rachel Ruysch

Today, we talk diversity in art and nature. The University of Houston presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. 

Recently I saw an exhibit of the sixteenth-century Dutch painter, Rachel Ruysch. Famed for lush florals and still lifes, Ruysch specialized in dense bouquets of fruit and exotic flowers, set against the stark dark background typical of the era. Like most artists in the genre, Ruysch’s work is highly realistic: you can almost smell the floral scents and wipe the beads of dew on grapes. But Ruysch’s realism is also striking for the variety of exotic flora and fauna she portrays. While it wasn’t uncommon back then for still lifes to show a butterfly perched on a leaf or a dead fish on a plate, those animals were usually common species. But Ruysch’s paintings include such exotic imports as a blue Brazilian passionflower, a stinking corpse flower, a hulking West African longhorn beetle, and strangely textured Suriname toad. The animals and vegetation are portrayed with such detail that botanists and zoologists today can identify the individual species. It’s obvious why Ruysch was widely collected and court painter to European rulers. In both content and skill, Ruysch’s dazzling still lifes are orders beyond her peers.

Rachel Ruysch, Flowers in a Glass Vase, 1704. Image courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts. 

Rachel Ruysch was a rare thing—a female artist famous in her own lifetime, especially so long ago. That in itself is important, but the exhibit of Ruysch’s paintings that I saw was also interesting because her paintings were shown alongside entomological and zoological specimens to highlight the range and scientific accuracy of her depictions. Ruysch’s great uncle was a colonial explorer during the rise of the Dutch East India Company, and her father was a physician and collector of medical and biological curiosities. So, in her paintings, Ruysch’s flora and fauna are shown with deep understanding of their global origins and the value they exerted in Europe. 

Rachel Ruysch’s paintings are fascinating combinations of power, rarity, and vulnerability. Her talent enabled her to accurately portray the exotic specimens that Dutch imperialism acquired all over the globe, and because of her gift Ruysch herself become a rare and celebrated specimen, a female Old Master and court painter to kings. Ruysch’s success reminds us that genius is not restricted to gender, and that women have always painted masterpieces, advanced science, and made important contributions to art and knowledge. But, at the same time, history hasn’t always preserved that legacy. In fact, as scientists today know by referencing Ruysch’s beautifully photorealistic paintings, many of the unique species that she portrays in her art have since gone extinct, victim of overhunting, habitat destruction, and climate change.

Remember this, when you marvel at a Rachel Ruysch still life. How lucky we are that such an artist captured the wonders of the natural world, and how many other unique artists and living things are now lost to time. 

I’m Karen Fang, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work. 

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Links:

An Introduction to Rachel Ruysch, from the National Gallery (UK)

Lydialyle Gibson, “Rachel Ruysch’s Lush (Still) Life,” Harvard Magazine, October 10, 2025

This episode first aired on November 19, 2025.