Spray of flowers with insects and butterflies on a marble slab

This 1693 canvas at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge — one of three Ruysch works the museum holds — is among her earliest surviving dated compositions and shows her working at the beginning of her independent career, still under the strong influence of Willem van Aelst's dark-ground tradition. The marble slab setting was a standard compositional device that gave still-life painters a hard, defined surface on which to arrange objects, its cool grey veining providing a colour foil distinct from the warm flowers or fruit placed on it. Ruysch's inclusion of butterflies and insects on a marble slab reflects the entomological interest she absorbed from her father's household, where scientific specimens were part of daily domestic environment. The Fitzwilliam's collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings is exceptionally strong, and having three Ruysch works allows the museum to present a longitudinal view of her development across her long career.

The marble slab is painted with cool grey-green washes dragged with a clean brush to simulate veining, then a hard edge defining the slab's front face. Insects on the marble are painted with fine sable brushwork over a careful mid-tone base, their shadows indicated with a warm translucent glaze. The overall composition is lit from a single direction, with the marble slab receiving the same raking light as the flowers above.