Maria van Oosterwijck was born in 1630 in the town of Nootdorp between Delft and the Hague. Various municipal archives allow to trace her family and subsequent movements. She was one of three surviving children of Jacobus van Oosterwyck (1597-1674) and Adriana Lambrechts van Linschoten (1600-1636). Her father was a wealthy minister in a local Reformed church. Maria lived and worked in Voorburg and then Delft, and spend time in Leiden, before she moved to Amsterdam in 1666. Where she received her initial training remains unclear. As daughter of a wealthy family, she would have had the privilege of an education and instruction in diverse subjects including music and art. Painting flowers would have been considered appropriate for women in this period and it is likely that her early training was as an “amateur” and her exceptional talent and social status enabled her to pursue a career as a professional artist.

In Amsterdam, she and fellow still life painter Willem van Aelst had neighboring studios. A 19th c. biographical novel by Anna Louisa Geertruida Bosboom-Toussaint imagined a romantic relationship between van Aelst and van Oosterwijck which is likely untrue, but she may have been his student for a time. When Cosimo III, Duke of Tuscany, visited Amsterdam, his secretary recorded in a diary entry that the Duke looked at “several paintings by the four best painters in the country, one of them was a painting by van Aelst … and one by a women, his student who in the field of flower painting generally surpassed him.” There is little doubt that this refers to van Oosterwijck. Like van Aelst, van Oosterwijck specialized in still lives, so-called sumptuous still live, vanitas still live, festoons, and above all, flowers in a vase. Only about 40 paintings are known, of which some 27 are flowers in vases.

Later in life she moved to Uitdam not far from Amsterdam where she passed away in 1693. She was highly acclaimed in her time and her paintings were sought after and expensive. Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland, Johann Georg III, Elector of Saxony, and Louis XIV, King of France are said to have purchased works by her. In 1689, King-Stadtholder Willem III and his wife Maria Stuart purchased two paintings by her that are still part of the English royal collection at Hampton Court in London.

A portrait of van Oosterwijck by Wallerant Vaillant (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1671) shows an elegantly dressed, confident-looking woman holding a palette and brushes as well as a bible.