Maria van Oosterwijck (1630–1693)

• Was a Dutch Golden Age painter.
• Oosterwijck was specializing in flower paintings and other still lifes.
• Maria van Oosterwijck was born in 1630 in Nootdorp, a town located near Delft in South Holland.
• Her father took her, when she was quite young, to masterful still life painter Jan Davidsz. de Heem's studio.
• She became his student, and she showed herself to have a talent for vividly painting realistic creations.
• Van Oosterwijck initially worked in Delft and later moved to Utrecht.
• Sometime in the early- to mid-1670s, she moved to Amsterdam, where her studio was opposite the workshop of fellow flower painter Willem van Aelst.
• Van Aelst courted her, but she refused his hand, and he reportedly stopped pursuing her because her devotion to painting was more important to her.
• Van Oosterwijck remained single throughout her life, but she raised her nephew, who had been orphaned.
• She taught her servant Geertgen Wyntges, also known as Geertje Pieters, to mix her paints, and trained her as a painter too.
• After van Oosterwijck died, Wyntges lived independently, supporting herself as a painter.
• The displayed painting is a crop from: Maria van Oosterwijck, 1671 by painter: Wallerant Vaillant, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
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