owing to the rarity of her pictures, especially in public galleries. For although her flower pieces are weak in arrangement and often gaudy in the combination of color, she yet represents her flowers with the utmost truth of drawing, and with a depth, brilliancy, and juiciness of local coloring unattained by any other flower painter."
A picture in the Vienna Gallery of a sunflower with tulips and poppies, in glowing color, is probably her best work in a public collection. Her pictures are also in the galleries of Dresden, Florence, Carlsruhe, Copenhagen, the Schwerin Gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum of New York.
There is a romantic story told of Maria van Oosterwyck, as follows. William van Aelst, the painter of exquisite pictures of still-life, fruits, glass, and objects in gold and silver, was a suitor for her hand. She did not love him, but wishing not to be too abrupt in her refusal, she required, as a condition of his acceptance, that he should work ten hours a day during a year. This he readily promised to do. His studio being opposite that of Maria, she watched narrowly for the days when he did not work and marked them down on her window-sash. At the close of the year Van Aelst claimed her as his bride, assuming that he had fulfilled her condition ; but she pointed to the record of his delinquencies, and he could but accept her crafty dismissal of his suit.
Osenga, Giuseppina. This artist resides in Parma, and has there exhibited landscapes that are praised for their color and for the manner in which they are painted, as well as for the attractive subjects she habitually chooses.
