WOMAN IN ART
with twelve gates, and also on the river Po. Note her environment. Her father was an artist, a pupil of Guido Reni, Giovanni Andrea Sirani by name. So like was his style to that of his master that after his death Sirani was chosen to finish a number of his unfinished works. Sirani is also represented in one of the 130 churches of Bologna by a painting of St. Martin, and a Crucifixion, both of which are signed by his initials.
Stockholm, Venice, and Florence Galleries possess paintings by Andrea Sirani. Elisabetta, a pupil of her father, thus came in almost direct touch with the glory and teaching of Guido Reni. In 1655, when but seventeen years of age, she had a public exhibition of her paintings that were remarkable for one so young.
Domenichino and the Carracci were also natives of Bologna, and many of their works remaining there were also a means of art education to the young artist. Her subjects were naturally those of the painters of that period. "Madeleini in the Desert," "The Infant Jesus and Saints," "A Sleeping Love," "The Source," "Mary and Joseph Finding Jesus in the Temple," "Martha Reproved by Her Lord," and others of kindred subjects. "The Death of Abel" is in the Turin Gallery, "St. Anthony of Padua" is in Bologna, and "Charity" is in Rome. Elisabetta died in 1665. She left more than 150 works, many of them large, and all carefully executed. Most are in Bologna. She was the prominent one of three artistic sisters.
We cannot afford to overlook any known woman painter in the early centuries of modern times; they are so few and far between that we need them to reckon with in noting the development of woman.
Practically three hundred years after Margaret van Eyck painted with her brothers on the wonderful triptych at Bruge, there was born at Amsterdam a baby christened Rachel Ruysch, her father a professor of astronomy. As a very little child her pastime was drawing, and her earliest efforts at painting flowers interested her parents to the extent of placing her to study with William van Aelst, a skillful painter of flowers. Not long did she paint with him before it was acknowledged that she surpassed him in skill. As Vernet said to Mme. Lebrun when a mere child, "Nature is the best master," so it proved to be to the little Dutch Rachel. Her love for and close observation of flowers and butterflies taught her more than van Aelst could. She married the portrait painter, Jurrian Pool, but even a large family did not prevent her painting, nor diminish her enthusiasm for the work she loved and continued to a ripe old age. Her "Bloomstul" (flower pieces) sold at
75
