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.
Rachel Ruysch: Artist, Naturalist, and Pioneer is the first comprehensive solo exhibition dedicated to the artist. It brings together 35 of her finest paintings from museums and private lenders across the United States and Europe alongside plant and insect specimens as well as work by other female artists, including Anna Ruysch, Maria Sibylla Merian, and Alida Withoos. Seeing these provocative juxtapositions, visitors can gain insight into the central role women played in the production of scientific knowledge in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
As global trade routes expanded in the seventeenth 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. Visitors are invited to celebrate the beauty of Ruysch’s work while discovering the hidden stories woven within.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, the first monograph in over 70 years on the celebrated female Dutch painter, edited by Robert Schindler, Bernd Ebert, Anna C. Knaap.
International research and cooperation
Conservators, conservation scientists, and curators from the Alte Pinakothek and Doerner Institute in Munich, the Toledo Museum of Art, and Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University have used a wide range of techniques to better understand how Ruysch made her paintings. There has never been such a large investigation into works created by a woman, a still life painter, or a late seventeenth and early eighteenth century artist. Usually this has been reserved for Rembrandt and Vermeer, among others. Results from this study will appear in the MFA, Boston exhibition; and a publicly accessible database and themed journal dedicated to the results are expected in fall 2025.
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, and the Toledo Museum of Art. Scientific content was developed in collaboration with Charles Davis, professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University.