The soft petals of peonies, lilies, tulips, and passionflowers bloom so vividly in Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch’s still lifes that it appears as if you could touch them with your hand.

Ruysch was among the most renowned and compensated artists of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Hailing from The Hague, Netherlands, Ruysch began creating her first significant artworks—often featuring floral displays against a dark backdrop—at the age of 16 or 17 in 1681.

However, crawling through many of her artworks, depicted with such realism that scientists can recognize them even today, are moths, butterflies, bees, ants, lizards, and numerous other species that creep and crawl.

Ruysch’s creations are presently showcased at the Toledo Museum of Art in an exhibition titled “Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art.” According to Robert Schindler, the museum’s William Hutton Curator of European Art, it is the first significant exhibit of her work.

This exhibition is also the first to juxtapose her paintings with actual specimens of the flora and fauna she incorporated into her art. Collaborating with scholars from the University of Michigan Herbarium and Museum of Zoology, Schindler identified numerous specimens to feature alongside around 50 of her finest artworks. These pieces are exhibited next to illustrated books and botanical and zoological sketches created throughout her six-decade-long career.

In planning the exhibition, Schindler aimed to contextualize Ruysch’s paintings by presenting specimens of the insects, amphibians, and plants illustrated in her work. These specimens would be embedded within the exhibition itself.

“There’s an extensive range to cover, and she was incredibly prolific,” Schindler stated. “Her art is breathtaking, yet she was highly specialized. How do you divide it up and enhance the visitor experience?”

Visitors to the Toledo Museum navigate through a corridor in the exhibition hall, making their way through Ruysch’s early creations. They can observe a painting by Ruysch that closely resembles the work of an older contemporary. They encounter an artwork from another female artist. They view a large canvas of a forest landscape by a different contemporary artist, featuring a stump teeming with plants and animals, which Ruysch replicated multiple times.

Finally, visitors turn another corner, revealing a miniature natural history museum nestled within the exhibition. The specimens within this tiny museum, as noted by Brad Ruhfel, research collection manager for vascular plants at the U-M Herbarium, are seldom seen by the wider public. In total, the Toledo Museum of Art borrowed 79 insect specimens, five amphibian and reptile specimens, and 10 plant specimens from U-M.

Inside glass display cases are praying mantises, rows of beetles, red admiral butterflies, and old world swallowtails. The walls are adorned with pressed plants—blue passionflower, trumpet creeper, datura. Certain specimens—the passionflower, for example—are exhibited directly next to the paintings and illustrations that depict them.

The art of specimen identification

With many of the species depicted in Ruysch’s paintings already categorized, Schindler contacted U-M. He connected with Ruhfel, who collaborated with Schindler to choose the finest plant specimens for the exhibition.

“What excited me about this exhibit was its combination of several subjects that fascinate me: I’m from Toledo, so I grew up visiting the Toledo Museum of Art for school trips and family visits,” Ruhfel mentioned. “Fusing my interests in botany and natural history with art and my hometown museum was wonderful, and it’s a great opportunity to showcase our collections in a way that isn’t very common.”

Ruhfel managed to select plant specimens for three of Ruysch’s paintings in the exhibition. He gathered bundles of specimens from the Herbarium collections, and he and Schindler sifted through the documents and catalogues.

samples to uncover specimens that were both visually captivating and possessed an intriguing narrative.

One of the specimens Ruhfel retrieved, known as datura or angel’s trumpet, is referenced in ancient spiritual texts. Devotees utilized the hallucinogenic plant in ceremonies and rituals. Another specimen, the striking passionflower, features a crown of coronal filaments radiating from the base of its petals. The passionflower yields passionfruit, which can be consumed or used in beverages.

“Numerous individuals visit art museums, but perhaps they’ve never stepped foot in a natural history museum, so showcasing all these specimens in one place is genuinely fascinating,” Ruhfel remarked. “It might be a first for the Toledo museum to feature biological collections alongside art.”

Dutch colonialism and the intertwined bond between art and science

Throughout the late 1680s to the 1690s, Ruysch began integrating numerous plant and animal species that were not indigenous to the Netherlands into her creations, according to Schindler. She worked during the Scientific Revolution, a time from the 1500s to the 1700s that heralded the rise of contemporary science. Interest in biology and botany surged, and Europeans began observing specimens of flora and fauna that were entirely alien to them.

The daughter of Frederik Ruysch, a distinguished anatomy and botany professor in Amsterdam, Rachel had access to an extraordinary array of plant and animal specimens, many of which made their way to the Netherlands through Dutch colonial ventures.

“The context of her work is deeply rooted in the colonial framework, which we have attempted to address, at least in part, because without exploration, exploitation, and colonization abroad, these species would never have reached Europe,” Schindler stated.

Megan Reddicks Pignataro, curatorial research associate for European art at the Toledo Museum of Art, emphasizes that the exhibition also seeks to illustrate how the fields of art and science intertwined during this era.

“On one side, there is a yearning to grasp knowledge in Amsterdam at this moment,” she explained. “Part of this section on art, science, and nature seeks to dismantle the belief that art and science operated as distinct domains. When you are encountering a new species for the very first time, how do you document that—in 1700?”

This fusion of art and science is something Ruhfel hopes will persist. Museum collections hold value for ecologists and biologists, but experts from various fields may also find them beneficial. Furthermore, these are specimens that the public seldom has the chance to observe.

“This is truly an excellent opportunity for us—it exemplifies how our collections can be utilized beyond the conventional boundaries of ecology and evolutionary biology research,” Ruhfel noted. “Our specimens are significantly valuable for artists, art institutions, and historians. There’s a wealth of resources here that extend beyond mere biology.”

“Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art” will be available at the Toledo Museum of Art until July 27.