when the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) bought Flower Still Life (1716-20). “Despite her exceptional career, Ruysch’s contributions to art history have been underexplored,” Robert Schindler, a curator at ...

Her still-life paintings in muted pastel earth tones often feature subjects with distorted disproportions. A woman faces away from the viewer with exaggerated back muscles bulging off the canvas ...

Her father encouraged her artistic ambitions by placing her under the apprenticeship of Willem van Aelst, a still life specialist. Ruysch’s paintings exhibit a careful attention to detail ...