A Flower Painting by Rachel Ruysch

A three-part series for BBC Radio 4 offering the chance to take a long, slow look at great artworks, photographed in incredible detail.

What's hiding in the undergrowth of Rachel Ruysch's bold and beautiful flower painting? Follow the link to explore the picture and you'll be able to zoom in and see the tiniest details as you listen. This is a world where buds hiss like snakes, poppies twirl and tiny insects devour - a vibrant, fecund jungle, full of uncanny life.

Cathy FitzGerald hears how this great Dutch artist was influenced by her unusual childhood as the daughter of Frederik Ruysch, maker of one of the world's great curiosity cabinets. Frederik Ruysch's weird tableaux - created from human skeletons and embalmed bodies, insects and plants - were hugely popular in 17th century Amsterdam and his young daughter Rachel was almost certainly involved in their creation. Is this what brings a touch of strangeness to her brilliantly observed vases and bouquets?

Cathy talks to art-experts, garden historians and artists and asks why this brilliant painter - one of the most sought-after of her age - is so little known today.

Image: Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies, and Other Flowers in an urn on a Stone Ledge by Rachel Ruysch, c.1680s, from the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Photograph by Google Arts and Culture.

Presenter and Producer: Cathy FitzGerald
A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.