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Rachel Ruysch

Rachel Ruysch

Rachel Ruysch

Special Exhibition

Rachel Ruysch

NATURE INTO ART

Alte Pinakothek
26.11.2024 — 16.03.2025

Her magnificent, deceptively realistic floral still lifes with plants and fruits, butterflies and insects from the most diverse regions of the world already became sought-after and expensive collector's items during her lifetime. Demand was so great that the Amsterdam painter could afford to produce merely a few works a year. As the daughter of the renowned professor of anatomy and botany, Frederik Ruysch, the first female member of the Confrerie Pictura, court painter in Düsseldorf, lottery game winner and the mother of ten children, she was an exceptional figure in her time. The Alte Pinakothek will present the world's first major monographic exhibition of her work. Discover the wondrous world of Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) between art and science, perfected fine painting and artistic freedom amidst illustrious patrons in Amsterdam, Düsseldorf and Florence.

Exhibition organized by Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio: 13 April – 27 July 2025
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: 23 August – 07 December 2025

Curators: Bernd Ebert (Alte Pinakothek Munich), Robert Schindler (Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio), Anna C. Knaap (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Research Associate Alte Pinakothek Munich: Selvi Göktepe

The exhibition is held under the patronage of Sophie Prinzessin von Bayern.

First impressions

Admission

Ticket Special exhibition

Tuesday to Sunday (closed on Mondays)

12

€

reduced 8 €

Special exhibition with permanent collection

Sunday 13 € | Sunday reduced 9 €

16

€

reduced 11 €

Special exhibition with the combined ticket of all museums (12-euro-ticket)

Holders of the 12-euro-combined ticket pay a surcharge | only available at the museum ticket office

6

€

reduced 4 €

GROUP VISITS & EXCLUSIVE GUIDED TOURS

You are welcome to visit the exhibition with your group (max. 15 people plus guide) by prior arrangement or to book an exclusive guided tour. Please enquire about possible times at buchung@pinakothek.de.

Further information on group visits and exclusive guided tours can be found here.

Exhibition films

The life of Rachel Ruysch

Women in art around 1700

The butterfly print

Pigment analysis using X-rays

Early use of the Berlin Blue

The diversity of species in Ruysch's paintings

The honeycomb toad Pipa Pipa

The exhibition is divided into five sections

The exhibition opens with the Amsterdam artist’s early work. A selection of the most important paintings from the first decades of her career is juxtaposed with works by her teacher Willem van Aelst, other contemporary still life painters such as Jan Davidsz. de Heem and Otto Marseus van Schrieck, as well as Maria van Oosterwijck, who had been the leading painter of floral still lifes up until that time.

Few people today know that Rachel had a younger sister called Anna. She was also a talented painter of floral still lifes but did not achieve the professional success of her sister. Anna’s life and work have hardly been researched; only around a dozen paintings by her are known today. While the two sisters’ early careers seem to have evolved in a similar way, hardly any works by Anna are known that were painted after her marriage. Still lifes by the sisters are to be presented together for the first time in this exhibition.

A particular focus is placed on Rachel Ruysch’s link to botanical and zoological research at that time. The role of her father Frederik Ruysch, is traced. A renowned scholar and professor of anatomy and botany, he established an extensive and widely known collection of natural specimens and made it accessible to the public. Through her father, Rachel Ruysch had access to Amsterdam’s botanical gardens where native and non-native plants that had been brought to Europe from the expanding colonial territories could be seen. Artists used the ‘Hortus Botanicus’ as a source for their work, documented imported species and made a significant contribution to the circulation of knowledge.

Rachel Ruysch’s most successful and productive years began in 1700. In 1701, she became the first female member of the renowned artist’s society Confrerie Pictura in The Hague. She created the brilliant, colourful, and deceptively realistic bouquets of flowers with pieces of fruit and insects that established the painter’s international reputation. In 1708 she was appointed court painter to the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm in Düsseldorf and remained in his service until his death in 1716. During this time, she regularly combined magnificent bouquets of flowers with richly depicted fruit, teeming with insects. Ruysch’s late work from 1735 onwards surprises with another change in style: the opulent and luxuriant bouquets of flowers then gave way to smaller, less dense, airier floral arrangements with echoes of the French Rococo. Obviously proud of both her advanced years and her still confident brushwork, Ruysch added her age to her signature.

In an educational space specially created for the Munich exhibition, projects by students at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Human-Centered Ubiquitous Media), the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film (CreatiF Centre and Chair of Artificial Intelligence) and Sheffield Hallam University, along with the artist Margarita Berger, have creatively addressed the question: how can Rachel Ruysch’s painting method, her selection of motifs and their composition be best understood today? The resulting works, some of which transform Ruysch’s paintings into three dimensional objects, open up new perspectives for visitors on the ‘Old Master’ Ruysch’s works, enabling them to be experienced in a new way.

You can download the accompanying exhibition booklet here:

Impressions of the exhibition

Artworks in the exhibition

Find out more about Rachel Ruysch:

#Kunstheldin

#Kunstheldin

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An exhibition by

Main Supporters of the exhibition

ADDITIONAL SUPPORTERS OF THE EXHIBITION

Media Partners

Hotel Partner & Event Partners

Cooperation Partners

Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München, Lehrstuhl für KI und CreatiF Center 
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Human-Centered Ubiquitous Media 
Sheffield Hallam University  
Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, Lehrstuhl für Komposition 
Universität Konstanz, Studiengang Literatur – Kunst – Medien 
Acatech. Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften 
Margarita Berger 
Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz 
Upstroke Music 
Highlights – Internationale Kunstmesse München 

The Munich station of the exhibition benefits in particular from the extraordinary support of institutions of the Free State of Bavaria, not only through their participation with important objects from their collections, but also through their professional expertise. The institutions include (in alphabetical order):  

Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, München 
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, München 
Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München 
Botanische Staatssammlung München 
Deutsches Museum, München 
Martin von Wagner Museum der Universität Würzburg 
Staatliche Münzsammlung München 
Zoologische Staatssammlung München 

Under the magnifying glass

Under the magnifying glass

Experience Rachel Ruysch's works in a whole new depth with the Art Camera!