“Rachel Ruysch: Artist, Naturalist, and Pioneer” at the MFA Boston

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The abundant flowers, ripe fruits and lively reptiles that make up the lush and lavish still lifes of Rachel Ruysch commanded impressive sums during her day. Largely forgotten in the centuries following her death, these paintings go on view in the first-ever major retrospective dedicated to the extraordinary Dutch Golden Age painter, whose career spanned more than seven decades. First shown at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and the Toledo Museum of Art, the exhibition brings together 35 of Ruysch’s finest works — some shown for the first time — displayed alongside botanical and insect specimens from Harvard University’s Herbarium and Museum of Comparative Zoology. The daughter of the botanist, physician and anatomist, Ruysch maintained a close relationship with the natural world, and the exhibition explores her ability to integrate art and science, particularly as one of the first artists to incorporate newly discovered flowers from global trade into her still lifes. Alongside these compositions, works by other women artists, including her sister Anna Ruysch, Sibylla Merian and Alida Withoos, emphasize the central role women played in the production of scientific knowledge in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries.

^{Rachel Ruysch, “Flower Still Life with Butterflies and Insects” (detail), 1717. Jim Mullen and Nola Anderson. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston}