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REPRODUCTION in the Summer of 1695, Johann Wilhelm, Elector

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REPRODUCTION in the Summer of 1695, Johann Wilhelm, Elector CHAPTER EIGHT REPRODUCTION In the summer of 1695, Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, visited Frederik Ruysch’s museum, where he undoubtedly saw paintings by Ruysch’s daughters, particularly those done by Rachel. At this time Rachel had just given birth to her first child, but motherhood had not prevented her from continuing her career as a painter. Her sister Anna had given up painting when she married, but Rachel had carried on, and could meanwhile demand high prices for her flower still lifes. In 1699 her success was formally recognized when she became the first woman elected to membership in Pictura, the painters’ confraternity in The Hague. In 1656 the Hague painters had withdrawn from the Guild of St Luke, having been prompted to do so by ‘arrogance’, according to their former guild-brothers, who included the house-painters and decora- tors. The new society was limited to ‘artist-painters’, sculptors, engrav- ers and a few art lovers. According to the new confraternity’s rules and regulations, the guildhall was to be decorated with the members’ own paintings. On 4 June 1701, the painter Jurriaan Pool presented the confraternity with a flower piece by his wife, Rachel Ruysch. Painters often gave a work on loan, but this painting was donated to Pictura, and a subsequent inventory of its possessions listed ‘an especially fine flower painting by Miss Rachel Ruysch’.1 Rachel Many of Rachel Ruysch’s clients were wealthy. The high prices she charged them enabled her to concentrate on only a few pieces a year, each of which took several months to complete. Orders for paint- ings intended to mark a special occasion had to be placed well in advance. In 1708 Rachel was offered a position as court painter to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine. Her father, who was visited that 1 Obreen, Archief kunstgeschiedenis IV, 211. 348 chapter eight year by two of the Elector’s personal physicians, promptly dedicated his following thesaurus to him. Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine since 1690, and his wife, Anna Maria de’ Medici, had brought various artists to their court in Düs- seldorf, where they had built up such a respectable collection that the city was described as a miniature Rome. At first the Elector and his wife had focused on furniture, coins and medals, but eventually their collection branched out to include sculptures and paintings. One of the first painters to enter their service was Eglon van der Neer, whose younger brother Pieter, a diamond cutter, was married to a sister-in- law of Frederik Ruysch. Among the artists who had been summoned to Düsseldorf were various other Dutch masters, including Gerard de Lairesse. Rachel Ruysch, meanwhile the mother of several children, was reluctant to move to Düsseldorf, and was thus released from the obligation to reside at court. Other court painters, such as Adriaen van der Werff and Jan Weenix, were also employed on this basis. Rachel was given an annual allowance, in return for which she was only required to produce one painting a year for the Elector’s collection. Although Rachel occasionally made the journey to Düsseldorf to deliver her paintings, she continued to live in Amsterdam with her husband, Jurriaan Pool, and their children. Even though she was nearly thirty when she married, she gave birth to ten children. The last one—a boy, born when she was forty-seven—was named Jan Willem, after her patron. The Elector and his wife agreed to act as godparents, and when Rachel took the child to Düsseldorf to present him to the Elector and his wife, Johann Wilhelm gave the boy a costly medallion on a red ribbon, and Rachel a dressing table with twenty-eight silver accessories in an elegant toiletry case, as well as six silver sconces. In the spring of 1711, Rachel Ruysch and Jurriaan Pool were paid a visit by the Von Uffenbach brothers, one of whom—Zacharias Con- rad—recounted their impressions in his travel journal. Although Pool himself was no mean portrait painter, the Uffenbachs had gone mainly to see the work of Rachel, the daughter of the famous anatomist. Zacharias described her as a woman of forty, not especially pretty, but extremely cultivated. ‘Both the husband and wife were very courte- ous, but also very boastful, in a typical Dutch way.’ Perhaps they had thought Rachel was flaunting her possessions when she showed them the silver the Elector had given her on her last visit to Düsseldorf.2 2 Uffenbach,Merkwürdige Reisen, III, 627–628..
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