Reading with author Andreas Schwarz: Rachel Ruysch—The Queen of Flower Painters

The Queen of Flower Painters. Rachel Ruysch – Her greatest love was art. Alexander Schwarz (Bertha Benz) is back in Sinsheim! With his new gripping and fascinating biographical novel about a strong woman and painter who was more successful than Rembrandt during her lifetime. Amsterdam, 1679. Every time Rachel soaks up the colorful hustle and bustle on Dam Square—the smell of salt, the sailors’ shouts, the foreign languages—it is as if a door to another world is opening for her. Only one thing brings her even greater joy: her lessons with the renowned flower painter Willem van Aelst, who, however, soon finds he has nothing left to teach the exceptionally gifted young woman. When Rachel falls in love with the portrait painter Juriaen Pool, her life takes a new turn. But not only does she never put down her brush even in her role as a mother of ten, she is even appointed court painter by Elector Johann Wilhelm in Düsseldorf. And she meets the maid Emma, whose search for her origins soon draws Rachel into the maelstrom of dark power struggles. For anyone who wants to experience the Golden Age of late 17th-century Amsterdam through the eyes of a woman who was far ahead of her time.