This celebrated paintress of fruit and flowers was born at Amsterdam in
1664. She was the daughter of Frederick Ruisch or Ruysch, the celebrated
professor of anatomy. She early showed an extraordinary taste for
depicting fruit and flowers, and attained to such perfection in her
art, that some have not hesitated to equal and even prefer her works to
those of John van Huysum. She grouped her flowers in the most tasteful
and picturesque manner, and depicted them with a grace and brilliancy
that rivalled nature. Descamps says that "in her pictures of fruit and
flowers, she surpassed nature herself." The extraordinary talents of
this lady recommended her to the patronage of the Elector Palatine--a
great admirer of her pictures--for whom she executed some of her
choicest works, and received for them a munificent reward. Though she
exercised her talents to an advanced age, her works are exceedingly
rare, so great was the labor bestowed upon them. She spent seven years
in painting two pictures, a fruit and a flower piece, which she
presented to one of her daughters as a marriage portion. She married
Jurian Pool, an eminent portrait painter, by whom she had ten children;
she is frequently called by his name, though she always signed her
pictures with her maiden name. Smith, in his Catalogue raisonné, vols.
vi. and ix., gives a description of only about thirty pieces by her--a
proof of their extreme rarity. They now command very high prices when
offered for sale, which rarely happens. She died in 1760, aged 86 years.