Maria Van Oosterwyck's Rare and Intriguing Vanitas Paintings

Maria Van Oosterwyck's career was remarkable. The pastor's daughter, born near Delft, probably listened to wise advice from the families of her mother and her father's second wife, who both came from artistic backgrounds. According to her first biographer, Arnold Houbraken, she earned her spurs in Delft and Leiden, then studied in Utrecht with Jan Davidsz de Heem. In 1666, she moved to Amsterdam to continue her studies with Willem Van Aelst, rejecting his advances (again, according to Houbraken) to devote herself solely to painting. The Favors of the Great and the Good She soon earned a glowing reputation, and when the future Cosimo III de' Medici visited the Netherlands in 1667, he bought two of her still lifes. Shortly afterward, Leopold I of Habsburg in turn acquired one of her vanitas paintings…