LONDON, ENGLAND.- Sotheby’s will offer the work "Still Life of Roses, Poppies, Carnations, a Tulip, Honeysuckle and other Flowers" by Rachel Ruysch on Thursday, December 12, 2002. RACHEL RUYSCH stands out in the predominantly masculine world of the Old Masters as one of the greatest flower painters, male or female.

Meticulously observed and brilliantly executed, Ruysch’s works were highly sought after by the most important noble families of her day. Now, years later, they remain among the most admired examples of the genre. It is perhaps remarkable that a woman should have emerged as such an esteemed and talented artist in 17th-century Holland. But Rachel Ruysch was remarkable in other ways too. Her career was unusually long: she began painting in her teens and was still painting and signing her work well into her 80s. More remarkable still, in addition to her dazzling career, Rachel Ruysch managed to fulfil her duties as a mother to no fewer than ten children.

Rachel was born in The Hague in 1664 and moved to Amsterdam with her family when she was three. Her father was an eminent scientist - a professor of botany and anatomy - and it was no doubt from him that she learned how to observe and record nature with great accuracy. Remarkably talented from an early age, Ruysch was apprenticed to the leading Dutch flower painter Willem van Aelst when she was only 15, her early scientific studies of insects and flowers already hinting at the virtuoso skill that was to become apparent in her later still-life studies. In 1693 she married the painter Juriaen Poole and they started a family. Rachel was herself one of 12 children, and so perhaps she took large numbers in her stride. Certainly, the 10 children she bore did not in any way affect the quality or consistency of her work. In 1701, she became a member of the painters’ guild in The Hague and started producing large flower pieces for an international circle of patrons. Several years later she and her husband were invited to Dusseldorf to serve as court painters to Johann Willelm, the Elector Palatine of Bavaria. They remained there from 1708 until the prince’s death in 1716. After returning to Holland, Ruysch continued to paint fruit and flower pictures for a prominent clientele. Her reputation continued to grow, and the high prices her work commanded made her paintings perfect dowries for her daughters. She remained artistically active almost to the very end, proudly inscribing her age (83) on a canvas she painted in 1747. Despite changes in taste in the years since her death, her reputation as one of the finest still-life painters has never wanted.