Dutch 1664-1750 Rachel Ruysch (June 3, 1664 ?? Amsterdam, August 12, 1750) was a Dutch artist who specialized in still-life paintings of flowers. She was born in The Hague, but moved to Amsterdam when she was three. Her father Frederik Ruysch, a famous anatomist, and botanist, was appointed a professor there. He gathered a huge collection of rarities in his house. She assisted her father decorating the prepared specimen in a liquor balsamicum with flowers and lace. At fifteen Ruysch was apprenticed to Willem van Aelst, a prominent Delft painter, known for his flower paintings. In 1693, she married a portrait painter, Juriaen Pool (1666-1745), with whom she had ten children. Her sister Pieternel was married to Jan Munnicks, a young man who drew flowers in the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam. In 1701 Ruysch was inducted into the painters' guild in The Hague. Several years later Ruysch was invited to work for the court in D??sseldorf and serve as court painter to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine. She remained working for him and his wife from 1708 until the prince's death in 1716. Also Jan Weenix and Adriaen van der Werff were invited to deliver paintings, after Eglon van der Neer died. In 1723 she won the lottery. Ruysch kept painting for her prominent clients. Ruysch lived eighty-five years and her dated works establish that she painted from the time she was a young woman until she was an octogenarian. About a hundred paintings by her are known. The background of the paintings are usually dark. Ruysch was also noted for her paintings of detailed and realistic crystal vases.  Related Paintings of Rachel Ruysch :. | Still life with flowers on a marble table top | Rachel Ruysch, | Still-Life with Fruit and Insects | Flowers in a Vase | Flowers in a vase |
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TORRENTIUS, Johannes
Dutch painter (b. 1589, Amsterdam, d. 1644, Amsterdam). Dutch painter. He was active in Amsterdam, Leiden and Haarlem. In Haarlem in 1627 he was condemned, after severe torture, to 20 years of imprisonment for impiety, blasphemy and his membership of the outlawed Society of Rosicrucians. After having been notified by Sir Dudley Carleton, the British ambassador in The Hague, Charles I of England intervened and brought about Torrentius's release in 1629. Torrentius was subsequently active from 1629 to 1632 in London, which he nevertheless had to leave, again on account of his purportedly immoral mode of life; he returned to Amsterdam. There he was again involved in a trial and died after suffering torture in 1644. His erotic pictures, some of which depicted masterful nudes in mythological settings and are now known only through literary sources, were publicly burnt. A few still-lifes (e.g. Emblematic Still-life, 1614; Amsterdam, Rijksmus.) have survived. These carefully composed works, mostly set before a dark background, recall the work of Jan van de Velde II and the circle of Willem Claesz. Heda.
Frederick Stuart Church
Painter , Illustrator and Artist . American , 1842-1924 was an American artist, working mainly as an illustrator and especially known for his (often allegorical) depiction of animals. He was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His father was an important figure in politics as well as a well-known lawyer. At the age of 13 he left school and took a job at the then newly-established American Express Company in Chicago, with his parents intending him to have a business career. Being nineteen at the outbreak of the Civil War he served in the Union Army. After his discharge he returned to Chicago, having decided to devote his life to art, and started studying drawing under Walter Shirlaw at the city's Academy of Design. In 1870 he took the decision to continue his studies in New York City, which became his home for the rest of his life. He enrolled at the National Academy of Design, where he was taught by Lemuel Wilmarth. He joined the Art Students League, headed by his old teacher Walter Shirlaw, in which he remained involved for the rest of his life. Unlike many other Americans of his time who felt themselves to be living in a cultural backwater, Church - while he did think that an artist needed to be formally taught - saw no need to study art in Europe and in fact only crossed the Atlantic late in his life. He often expressed outspoken pride in original American art and declaring that "foreign art" had "little to teach Americans". This might be a reflection of the attitudes taken by the strong nativist movements active during his young age, among other places in Chicago when he lived there.
Edward Henry Fahey,RI
1844-1907