Rachel Ruysch – Nature Into Art
On 9 and 10 February 2025, CODART organized a study visit to Munich. The main topic of the visit was be the exhibition Rachel Ruysch – Nature Into Art, which is a collaboration between the Alte Pinakothek, the Toledo Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston. It is the first major monographic exhibition of the Dutch painter, renowned for her deceptively realistic floral still lifes with exotic plants and fruits, butterflies and insects.
The Alte Pinakothek offered participants of the CODARTfocus a private viewing of the exhibition on Sunday evening and Monday afternoon with curators Bernd Ebert (Chief Curator of Dutch and German Baroque Painting, Alte Pinakothek, Munich), Robert Schindler (William Hutton Curator of European Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo) and Antien Knaap (Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Curator of Paintings Art of Europe, MFA, Boston). On Monday, lectures by Simone Ebert (Head of Education and Visitor Service, Alte Pinakothek, Munich) and Heike Stege (Head of the Scientific Department, Doerner Institute, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich) delved deeper into the public programming of the exhibition and Ruysch’s painting techniques.
-
- Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), Still Life of Roses, Tulips and a Sunflower, 1710, National Gallery, London, on loan from Janice and Brian Capstick
-
- Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), Bouquet of Flowers, 1715, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, München
Besides the exclusive visits to the exhibition, this CODARTfocus presented an ideal opportunity to become more acquainted with the permanent collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings of the Alte Pinakothek and its recently revised displays. On Monday, while the museum is closed to the public, we visited the new display together with Bernd Ebert, Gabriel Dette (Chief Curator of Early German and Early Netherlandish Painting, Alte Pinakothek, Munich) and Mirjam Neumeister (Curator of Flemish Paintings, Alte Pinakothek, Munich).
In addition to the program at the Alte Pinakothek, a special excursion to Schleißheim Palace was organized on Sunday. This early eighteenth-century summer palace of the Wittelsbach dynasty is a highlight of German baroque architecture. The palace also houses a significant portion of the Bayerisches Staatsgemäldesammlungen’s collection of Baroque paintings, including works by Rubens and Van Dyck.
View the full program for more details. For more information and to register for the CODARTfocus in Munich, please see the participate page. If you have any questions about this event, please contact us at events@codart.nl.
