The background of her paintings are usually dark which was the fashion for flower painting in the second half of the 17th century, led by Marseus van Schrieck. According to Houbraken when Abraham Mignon died in 1679, his flower paintings became so popular that prices for them would have continued to increase beyond measure had it not been for the flower painters Rachel Ruysch and Jan van Huysum, whose works were closer to nature.[3] She was 54 and at the peak of her fame as he was writing. Ruysch continued to paint into her eighties, and when Jan van Huysum came to her studio to show one of his works with a lighter background, she liked it so much that she began making paintings with a lighter background herself. Johan van Gool included her with an engraved portrait in his list of painter biographies in 1750.[4] He paid her a visit to interview her and was so astonished at the quality she was still able to achieve in her old age, that he included several poems in his biography of her by leading Amsterdam poets to prove that he was not the only one so deeply impressed.