Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s; Oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 33 in.; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

WASHINGTON DC - Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750 showcases a broad range of work by more than forty Dutch and Flemish women artists, including Gesina ter Borch, Maria Faydherbe, Anna Maria de Koker, Judith Leyster, Magdalena van de Passe, Clara Peeters, Rachel Ruysch, Maria Tassaert, Jeanne Vergouwen, Michaelina Wautier, and more. Presenting an array of paintings, lace, prints, paper cuttings, embroidery, and sculpture, this exhibition draws on recent scholarship to demonstrate that a full view of women’s contributions to the artistic economy is essential to understanding Dutch and Flemish visual culture of the period.

Women were involved in virtually every aspect of artistic production in the Low Countries during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. During this period, colonial exploitation and the international slave trade enriched Europe’s upper and middle classes, fueling demand for art and other luxuries. From celebrated painters who excelled in a male-dominated field to unsung women who toiled making some of the most expensive lace of the day, to wealthy patrons who shaped collecting practices, women created the very fabric of the visual culture of the era. Within a thematic presentation that considers the intertwined influences of status, family, and social expectations on a woman’s training and career choices, this exhibition demonstrates the many ways in which women of all classes contributed to the booming artistic economy of the day.

Whether their work was circulated within aristocratic social circles, sold on the open market, or commissioned by patrons, women shaped and molded the world around them from Antwerp to Amsterdam.

Maria Schalcken, Self-Portrait in Her Studio, ca. 1680; Oil on panel, 17 3/8 x 13 3/8 in.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Donation of Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo, in support of The Center for Netherlandish Art, inv. 2019.2094

Jan Lievens, Portrait of Anna Maria van Schurman, 1649; National Gallery, London

Although she maintained that she was self-taught, van Schurman probably studied engraving with Magdalena van de Passe, daughter of the Utrecht engraver and publisher Crispijn van de Passe. Van Schurman received praise for her artwork and was made an honorary member of the painter’s guild (Guild of St. Luke) in Utrecht in 1643.

Born in Cologne, Germany, in 1607, van Schurman learned to read by age four and later studied Latin, Greek, and several other languages. As the daughter of wealthy parents, she was educated in the humanities alongside her older brothers. Forced to move often to avoid religious intolerance, van Schurman’s Protestant family settled in Utrecht in 1623 after her father’s death. There, she met poets and philosophers and further cultivated her academic interests.

During the 1630s, van Schurman began corresponding with scholars and philosophers regarding the place of women in academics. She later published dissertations and treatises advocating for the education of women in science and language. However, after becoming a member of the Labadists—a Protestant sectarian community founded by Jean de Labadie, a former Catholic priest—she abandoned her earlier secular interests in science and classic literature. Van Schurman, who never married, remained a member of the group until her death in 1678.

Anna Maria van Schurman, Self-Portrait, 1640; Engraving on paper, 8 1/2 x 6 3/8 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

During her lifetime, Anna Maria van Schurman made numerous self-portraits. She constantly experimented with different techniques, including painting, pastels, etching, engraving, and drypoint. In this image, she combined the techniques of engraving and etching. Van Schurman depicted herself wearing an elegant dress embellished with lace on the bodice and sleeves. She convincingly rendered the illusion of spatial depth by shading the inner rim of the oval frame and placing herself behind a ledge, which pushes her figure farther back into the picture plane.

That ledge also obscures her hands. Van Schurman hid her hands in her first engraved self-portrait (1633), as well, for which a correspondent, the poet and statesman Constantijn Huygens, chided her. He admonished van Schurman for being ashamed of her ink-stained hands, which he said “have never found their equal.”

As the inscription on the oval frame tells us, the artist made this work in 1640 when she was 33 years old. The Latin inscription at the bottom is addressed to her friends, to whom she sent this portrait. It reads, “See my likeness depicted in this portrait:/May your favor perfect the work where art has failed.”

Judith Leyster, Self Portrait, ca.1630; Oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss; © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Leyster produced most of her paintings between approximately 1629 and 1635; her artistic output decreased dramatically after her marriage in 1636. In addition to raising her children, Leyster may have managed the family’s business and properties; she probably also assisted with her husband’s art. By 1649, the family returned from Amsterdam to Haarlem, where Leyster spent the remainder of her life.

Her work was clearly influenced by genre paintings created by noted Haarlem artist Frans Hals, which led to attribution errors. Although well known during her lifetime, Leyster and her work were largely forgotten after her death until 1893, when a painting acquired by the Louvre was found to have Leyster’s distinctive monogram (her initials entwined with a five-pointed star) hidden under a false signature reading “Frans Hals.” This discovery led to renewed research and appreciation of Leyster’s oeuvre, which had previously been confused with that of Hals.

Judith Leyster, The Concert, ca. 1633; Oil on canvas, 24 x 34 1/4 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Along with tavern scenes and intimate domestic genre pieces, Judith Leyster frequently painted musical performance scenes. In The Concert, Leyster accurately depicts elements such as the Baroque violin (made without a chin rest and usually supported against the chest), as well as the woman’s songbook.

The figures shown here are likely portraits. Based on similar individuals in Leyster’s other pictures, scholars have tentatively identified the singer as the artist herself, the violinist as her husband, and the lute player as a family friend. The members of the trio, like all musicians, must work together as a unit, “in concert,” which has led some writers to theorize that this scene symbolizes the virtue of harmony.

Leyster frequently placed her subjects against a plain, monochromatic background. Thus, nothing distracted from the figures, who are all shown in the midst of various actions (bowing or plucking strings and beating time). The deep angle at which the lute is held adds depth to the composition. The varied directions of the musicians’ gazes offer the viewer different focal points.

William Home Lizars, Portrait of Madame Merian (from "The Naturalist's Library," volume 30) (detail), 1835; NMWA; Print collection assembled by Nancy Valentine, purchased with funds donated by Mr. Oliver R. Grace.

 

In 1670, she and her husband moved to Nuremberg, where Merian published her first illustrated books. In preparation for a catalogue of European moths, butterflies, and other insects, Merian collected, raised, and observed living insects, rather than working from preserved specimens.

In 1685, Merian left Nuremberg and her husband, whom she was later divorced; she and her two daughters moved to the Dutch province of West Friesland. Eight years later, at the age of 52, Merian and her younger daughter embarked on a dangerous trip to the Dutch colony of Suriname, in South America, without a male companion. Merian had seen some of the dried specimens of animals and plants that were popular with European collectors, and she wanted to study them within their natural habitats. She spent the next two years studying and drawing the indigenous flora and fauna.

Forced home by malaria, Merian published her most significant book in 1705. The lavishly illustrated Insects of Surinam established her international reputation. The plates in NMWA’s collection come from a second, posthumously published edition, Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam.

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 47 (from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 2nd edition), 1719; Hand-colored engraving on paper, 20 1/2 x 14 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay.

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 18 (from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 2nd edition), 1719; Hand-colored engraving on paper, 20 1/4 x 14 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 70 (from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 2nd edition), 1719; Hand-colored engraving on paper, 14 1/2 x 20 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 5 (from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 2nd edition), 1719; Hand-colored engraving on paper, 20 1/2 x 14 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 1 (from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, 2nd edition), 1719; Hand-colored engraving on paper, 20 1/2 x 14 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

Aert Schouman, Portrait of Rachel Pool-Ruysch, 1749; The Rijksmuseum Library, Amsterdam; © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Ruysch’s maternal grandfather, Pieter Post, was an important architect, and her father, Frederik Ruysch, an eminent scientist. From him, she learned how to observe and record nature with great accuracy. At 15, she was apprenticed to the well-known Dutch flower painter Willem van Aelst. From that point on, she produced various kinds of still lifes, mainly flower pieces and woodland scenes.

In 1701, Ruysch became a member of the painters’ guild in The Hague. At that time, she began producing large flower works for an international circle of patrons. Several years later, Ruysch was invited to Düsseldorf to serve as court painter to Johann Wilhelm, the Elector Palatine of Bavaria. She remained there from 1708 until the prince’s death in 1716.

After returning to Holland, Ruysch kept painting fruit and flower pictures for a prominent clientele. She remained artistically active, proudly inscribing her age on a canvas she completed in 1747, at age 83. Despite the changes in popularity of flower paintings during the years since her death, Ruysch’s reputation has never waned.

Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s; Oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 33 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

The exuberant profusion of flowers in this still life by Rachel Ruysch celebrates color, texture, and form. Her minute attention to detail captured even the individual grains of pollen inside each open flower.

The dynamic, pyramid-shaped composition derives much of its energy from the asymmetrical arrangement of the blossoms, further accentuated by the wildly curving stems and dramatically highlighted central section. The dark background reveals a hint of architecture, demonstrating Ruysch’s awareness of this new compositional trend among flower painters in Amsterdam.

While this painting contains several elements that would also be found in the popular 17th-century Dutch picture type known as a vanitas, scholars doubt that this was Ruysch’s intention. A true vanitas painting stresses the brevity of earthly life and the inevitability of death and decay, through such objects as a snuffed-out candle or a worm-eaten fruit.

Ruysch’s depiction of insects alighting on the flowers or leaves that are beginning to turn brown, seems more a straightforward depiction of life rather than a moralizing statement on death.

Presumed portrait of Clara Peeters, unknown artist, n.d.
 

While definite details concerning her life are scarce, recent research indicates that Clara Peeters was probably born Clara Lamberts to a family of artists in Mechelen (present-day Belgium) sometime around 1587. In 1605, she married fellow painter Henrick II Peeters.

Peeters’s earliest dated oil paintings, from 1607 and 1608, are small-scale, detailed images representing food and beverages. The skill with which this young artist executed such pictures indicates that she must have been trained by a master painter. Although there is no documentary evidence of her artistic education, scholars believe that Peeters was a student of Osias Beert, a noted still-life painter from Antwerp.

By 1612, Peeters was producing large numbers of painstakingly rendered still lifes, typically displaying groupings of valuable objects, such as elaborately decorated metal goblets, gold coins, and exotic flowers. Her compositions often show these arrangements on narrow ledges, seen from low vantage points, against dark backgrounds.

Clara Peeters, Still Life of Fish and Cat, after 1620; Oil on panel, 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay
 

Clara Peeters’s considerable skill at rendering naturalistic texture and detail is on full display in Still Life of Fish and Cat. In this work, she realistically depicted household abundance, without the subtle moral or subtext often associated with still lifes.

The reddish ceramic colander holds several types of fish, including an eel. Its long, slender body forms a prominent loop that adds visual interest to the upper left of this still life. Peeters increased the illusion of space within the picture by including several reflections in the metal dish.

The varied textures of slippery fish scales, thickly glazed clay, cat’s fur, rough oyster shells, and a gleaming pewter dish enhance the sensory qualities of the painting. The cat, with its ears pointed back, stands alert to any potential interloper as it protects its fishy fortune.

Clara Peeters, A Still Life of Lilies, Roses, Iris, Pansies, Columbine, Love-in-a-Mist, Larkspur and Other Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Table Top, Flanked by a Rose and a Carnation, ca. 1610; Oil on wood panel, 19 1/2 x 13 1/4 x 2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth
 

This still life is one of the largest and most lavish of Clara Peeters’s flower pieces. Characteristically, the artist attempts to fool viewers’ eyes into perceiving depth by situating the bouquet on a narrow ledge. Set against a dark background, the arrangement also features illusionistic overhanging rose leaves against a dark background. Two blooms have dropped from the vase: a rose on the left and carnation on the right help balance the composition.

Peeters innovates by moving away from the strict symmetry and simplicity of earlier flower paintings. Typically, such works featured one flower at the apex of the bouquet. Peeters created dynamism in this composition by including an unopened iris bud at the pinnacle of the arrangement, just above the open bloom. She also used color to move the viewer’s eye around the canvas. Each bright flower scattered throughout the composition vies for attention. Her ability to depict flowers overlapping one another as they would in an actual bouquet, as well as her presentation of flowers from all angles, lends a novel visual interest to Peeters’s composition.

Still-life painting was a new genre in the early 17th century. Smaller, more intimate paintings like these, were popular with burgeoning middle-class populations in cities such as Antwerp and Amsterdam. Perhaps it is not surprising that a woman painter was able to make significant contributions to subject matter that was gaining popularity just as her career began to flourish.

Exhibition Sponsors

Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750 is organized in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium.

The exhibition is made possible by Denise Littlefield Sobel with leadership gifts provided by Morgan Stanley and Tara Rudman.

Additional funding is provided by Martha Lyn Dippell and Daniel L. Korengold, Lugano, Kay Woodward Olson, Patti and George White, Laurel and John Rafter, and an anonymous donor. Further support comes from Marcia Myers Carlucci, Dutch Culture USA program by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in New York, Jacalyn D. Erickson, Lucas Kaempfer Foundation, Inc., Jacqueline Badger Mars, Geri Skirkanich, Tavolozza Foundation, VisitFlanders, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Angela M. Lo Ré, Anne L. von Rosenberg, Ilene S. and Jeffrey S. Gutman, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Society of Daughters of Holland Dames, Charlotte and Michael Buxton, Anne N. Edwards, the Netherland-America Foundation, Frances Luessenhop Usher in memory of Carol Lascaris, and Marichu Valencia.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Quiringh van Brekelenkam, Interior with a Woman Teaching Three Girls Lacemaking, 1654; Oil on panel, 24 1/2 x 34 in.; Private Collection