Forest Floor with a classical façade beyond

Painted when the artist was in her mid-twenties, this beautiful still life is an important early work by one of the greatest female painters of the Dutch Golden Age. The painting demonstrates Ruysch’s engagement with artistic developments in Holland during the late-seventeenth century, while simultaneously displaying her already prodigious talent and flare for composition and colouring, which would go on to make her one of the most successful artists of her day. The work also shows several inventive elements, which were entirely new to her oeuvre.

Dating to the late 1680s, possibly around 1687, this painting was executed at a moment when Ruysch was cementing her reputation in Amsterdam. She had already been the subject of considerable praise in Holland, described in a poem by Hieronymus Sweerts in 1685 as a ‘Flower Goddess’ for her ‘beautiful variegated festoons, bouquets, and wreaths / painted with a brilliance that few can match’ (quoted in G. Jansen, Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands 1550-1720, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, 1999, p. 55). This Forest floor shows the impact of her master, Willem van Aelst who frequently included birds in his trophy and game pieces: the jay in particular, is executed with extraordinary accuracy and naturalism. The meticulous attention paid to the various plants, which are made more vivid and radiant through their placement against the darkened background and the dramatic lighting of the scene, speak of the influence of the work of the leading innovator of the Dutch forest floor still life, Otto Marseus van Schrieck.

While the painting recalls the work of earlier still life painters, the particular arrangement of the plants in this picture anticipates Ruysch’s later works. As discussed by Berandi (op. cit.), the flowers and plants are arranged essentially as a bouquet, ready to be placed into a vase. From around 1690 onwards, Ruysch’s work was typified by these types of arrangements, making this an important transitional work in her oeuvre. This is the first, or certainly one of the first, instances in which Ruysch introduced an architectural element into her composition, namely the classical façade in the right background. Though the building itself (if indeed it was based on a real structure) has yet to be identified, the style of the architecture is similar to that which the painter’s grandfather, Pieter Post (1608-1669), had designed for the Dutch elite during the mid-seventeenth century.

Ruysch’s talents as a still life painter and her meticulous observation of flora can, in part, be attributed to the influence of her father, Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731). An eminent botanist, he had been appointed Professor of Botany at the Hortus Botanicus (Botanic Gardens) in Amsterdam in 1685, specialising in the study of indigenous plants. The detail of Ruysch’s depiction not just of the flora, but also of the various animals and insects, attests to the fact that she must have made close first-hand studies of such specimens. Her rendering of the lizard in this work, for example, is so accurate that it can be identified as an indigenous species to Holland, either a viviparous lizard (Zootoca vivipara), or a common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis).