Vintage Romanticism Tote bag

Rachel Ruysch. Lived 1664-1750

The best documented female painter of the early 18th century. Growing up in 17th-century Holland, Ruysch was part of a distinguished and artistic family, helping her father, a professional anatomist and botanist, with natural specimens for their private museum, where she learned to depict the flowers and plants from different places of the world. From the age of 15, Ruysch trained with an established still life painter. As a woman, she was restricted from studying the male nude, which was the main technique for her male counterparts to paint historical or biblical subjects, but her paintings stand out (almost literally) because of their three dimensionality, thanks to her early experience in her father’s museum. In 1701, she became the first female member of an artist’s society in The Hague, and from 1708 to 1716, she was court painter in Düsseldorf. We know that money later became no object for the family as in 1722, Ruysch and her husband won the lottery. She continued painting for passion, however, and was still creating works in her 80s.

Flowers in a Vase
Around 1685
Oil on canvas

Rachel Ruysch’s elegant bouquet carries with it a breath of autumn. Pear blossom, peonies, viburnum, honeysuckle and columbine all bloom early in the year. But the burnt orange, russet and deep green of the Martagon lilies, the seed pod straggling over the edge of the stone shelf, the ripe wheat, and crisp, veined leaves near the end of their life turn away thoughts of spring.

The light on the pale flowers sweeps upwards, making them luminous. Overhead, Ruysch’s delicate brushstrokes seem to skim over the surface of the picture, so that the dusky blue columbine seem as if they‘re drifting in the darkness. The plump green pistil at the centre of the large peony appears to anchor the flower as if to prevent it floating away upwards on the line of the wheat stem above. The honeysuckle hardly touches the stone shelf, and from a short distance the pear blossom becomes a series of white dots scattered against the black wall.

In spite of the apparent weightlessness of each bloom, Ruysch builds her painting on a series of strong lines slightly tipped on the diagonal. The first drops down from the columbine, through the snowball viburnum and the peony, to the grasshopper almost hidden by the honeysuckle. Another starts at the pear blossom and leads across to the crimson peony bud almost lost in the shadows. The many diagonals that cross the painting, together with the strong contrasts in light and colour, underpin Ruysch’s design, allowing her the freedom to make her flowers light and ephemeral without losing depth and form.

• 100% spun polyester fabric
• Bag size: 15″ × 15″ (38.1 × 38.1 cm)
• Capacity: 2.6 US gal (10 l)
• Maximum weight limit: 44lbs (20 kg)
• Dual handles made from 100% natural cotton bull denim
• Handle length 11.8″ (30 cm), width 1″ (2.5 cm)
• The handles can slightly differ depending on the fulfillment location
• Blank product components sourced from China