Rijksmuseum acquires its first work by Maria van Oosterwijck

The Rijksmuseum has acquired its first masterpiece by Dutch Golden Age still life painter Maria van Oosterwijck (1630-93). The acquisition of Vanitas Still Life (ca. 1690) in 2023 makes the Rijksmuseum only the second museum in the Netherlands (the other is in the Mauritshuis) to own a van Oosterwijck. After extensive study and restoration, the painting went on display at the museum on March 4th.

Maria van Oosterwijck worked very slowly and deliberately, creating exceptionally naturalistic paintings of flowers starting with sketches she made using botanical illustrations as guides rather than actual flower arrangements. This method resulted in scientifically accurate depictions of blooms that would not be found in the same bouquet in real life.

She set her flowers in vases, sometimes elaborate ones, against a dark background on a stone ledge or niche. They were adorned with small creatures (butterflies, lizards, snails). Her meticulous attention to detail added a new depth and realism to the tradition of Dutch flower painting. It also resulted in a very small output over the length of her career. Only 30 artworks by Maria van Oosterwijck are known today.

She was widely recognized during her lifetime as an outstanding still life painter. Cosimo III de’ Medici, soon to be Grand Duke of Tuscany, saw her work on a trip to Amsterdam in 1667 and declared her as skilled as her teacher, prominent still life painter Willem van Aelst. The stamp of approval from a renown patron of the arts with links to all of the courts of Europe gave her a boost. She boosted herself even further by hiring an agent to promote and sell her work abroad.

Her reputation quickly spread outside the confines of her native land making her the first Dutch female artist to garner international fame. Louis XIV set the trend of royalty collecting her works, and other crowned heads of Europe followed in his footsteps. The only other vanitas still life by Maria van Oosterwijck, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, was acquired directly from the artist by Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of Austria and his wife Margaret Theresa of Spain. They were so pleased with it that Margaret Theresa sent Maria portraits of the imperial couple with diamonds in the frame as a thank you gift.

Van Oosterwijck specialised in flower still lifes, and a bouquet of flowers has a central role in the recently acquired ‘vanitas’ painting, a work of art that urges the viewer to reflect on the vanity of worldly life in the light of approaching death. She depicted a variety of other objects in the painting, including a Bible, a skull, a jewellery box and two tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. These elements convey profound religious significance, and the work occupies a crucial place in her body of work. The artist grew up in a devout environment – both her father and her grandfather were church ministers – and according to a contemporary she was ‘extraordinarily religious’ herself. It is notable that Van Oosterwijck explains the meaning of the picture on the sheet of paper in the foreground.

The painting underwent detailed examination following its purchase in 2023, revealing that Van Oosterwijck made an exceptionally large number of changes during the painting process. Examples of these changes include her overpainting of an hourglass and of a fully completed snake crawling in through the opening in the wall. Once the research was completed, restoration began. This process included the removal of yellowed varnish and overpainting from earlier restorations. The painting has now been returned, as close as possible, to its original state.