Maria van Oosterwijck

She is thought to have started as an apprentice to the renowned still life painter Jan Davidsz de Heem in 1666. Van Oosterwijck meticulously studied plants and flowers to capture them faithfully in her paintings. She rendered these flora in vivid colours set against a dark background. So impressive were her sumptuous still lifes that even monarchs such as Emperor Leopold I, the ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV, and Cosimo III de‘ Medici were keen to add her work to their collections. She was one the best-paid Dutch artists in the 17th century: at the peak of her career, a Van Oosterwijck still life would fetch hundreds of guilders, a record amount for the time!