Art in Focus

Art Up Close: Judith Leyster, the Leading Star of Her Time

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Dutch artist Judith Leyster was just 20 years old when she painted this virtuosic self-portrait in 1630.

But Leyster went missing from the art historical record for centuries. Her paintings were misattributed to male artists. Only in the past 100 years has she been recognized as a leading light of the Dutch Republic.

Today, her self-portrait is one of the National Gallery’s most popular paintings. In it, we see her expressive brushwork and her talent for capturing a lively manner. There’s no better introduction to Leyster than her own self representation. Get to know one of the rare women painters of the 17th century.

Shown from about the waist up, a woman with smooth, pale skin sits in a chair facing our right in front of a canvas on an easel in this vertical portrait. She leans onto her right elbow, which rests on the seat back. She turns her face to look at us, lips slightly parted. Her dress has a black bodice and a deep rose-pink skirt and sleeves. She wears a translucent white cap over her hair, which has been tightly pulled back. A stiff, white, plate-like ruff encircles her neck and reaches to her shoulders. She holds a paintbrush in her right hand and clutches about twenty brushes, a wooden paint palette, and a rag in her left hand, at the bottom right of the canvas. The painting behind her shows a man wearing robin's egg-blue and playing a violin. — Judith Leyster, *Self-Portrait*, c. 1630, oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, 1949.6.1

A lively manner captured on canvas

What might Leyster have been trying to tell us about herself?

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Her open and inviting expression immediately draws us in.

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She leans back against her chair, propping her arm on it, apparently pausing her work to chat with us.

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Her lips are parted, as if she is speaking. “Step into my studio,” she seems to say. “I’ll be with you in just a minute.”

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Dutch art patrons prized that fresh quality—the sense that they were encountering sitters in real life, not in a formal, stiff pose.

See, for example, this portrait by Leyster’s contemporary Frans Hals. His sitter Willem Coymans looks similarly casual.

Shown from the waist up, a light-skinned man sits sideways in a wooden chair so the arm closer to us rests along the chair’s back in this vertical portrait painting. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the clothing and hair. The man’s right arm, to our left, drapes across the back of the chair. His face turns slightly to our right, and he looks at us with gray eyes under black, curving brows. He has an oval face with high cheekbones and a snub nose. His coral-pink lips are closed and framed by a mustache and pointed patch of hair under his lower lip. He is lit from our left so the far side of his face is in shadow. His loose, curly brown hair cascades over his shoulders. He wears a tall black hat with a stiff, wide brim with a black rosette or pompom on the brim to our right side. The hat is tipped slightly to one side so it angles away from us. A flat, stiff, white collar extends from his chin down to his shoulders, and two tassels hang at this throat. The voluminous sleeve along the back of the chair has a gold pattern picked out in loosely painted, swirling, feathered, and flaring lines against a black background. The jacket is unbuttoned along the forearm to reveal a stark white undershirt that is gathered with a narrow ruffle at the wrist. The chair has a crimson-red center framed by wooden rails to each side and along the top. The background is earth brown to our right of the man, and deepens to dark shadows along the left. A coat of arms, the size of the man’s palm, hangs from the back wall. Three black cow heads create an inverted triangle on a gold field. Under the coat of arms the artist inscribed, “AETA SVAE.22 1645.” — Frans Hals, *Willem Coymans*, 1645, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.69

While Leyster was capturing that attitude, she was also doing something unusual. Men were often painted in this kind of active, assertive pose. It was rarely seen in portraits of women.

But what looks relaxed to us required an incredible amount of skill and effort. Take a seat, and try looking over your shoulder. How long can you hold that position?

Leyster would have had to return to this pose again and again for reference. Looking this relaxed is a lot of work.

A lavish costume for a successful artist

Your eyes might stop on the dramatic, stiff collar around Leyster’s neck.

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It’s extravagant in its diameter, pure white, trimmed with expensive lace.

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This fashion was all the rage in the 17th-century Dutch Republic.

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But wearing such a collar while working would have been utterly impractical for a painter. (Notice how it would prevent her from getting close to her canvas).

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Observe the position of the collar.

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It echoes the shape and tilt of the paint palette in the artist’s hand.

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Leyster’s expensive collar, headpiece, and silk dress advertise her success. We are meant to trust the skills of an artist who can afford to dress so finely.

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They may also reflect the tradition of the “gentleman artist”—or the gentlewoman, in this case.

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Artists had long been considered artisans, performing a sort of messy manual labor. Showing themselves in elegant clothing helped elevate painting as an intellectual pursuit.

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A painting within the painting

Leyster is in the middle of painting a spirited violin player. This musician is from a larger work called Merry Company, which she had completed the year before in 1629.

Judith Leyster, detail of *Self-Portrait*, c. 1630, oil on canvas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, 1949.6.1.

Judith Leyster, *Merry Company*, c. 1629. Oil on canvas. The Klesch Collection.

Here, the violin player advertises the kind of paintings you could buy from Leyster. She specialized in “merry companies,” a genre that depicted scenes of mirth, often with music, drinking, and dancing. It developed in Haarlem in the early 1600s and remained popular throughout the century.

Thanks to infrared reflectography scans, we can see the underpainting. Leyster originally painted the face of a woman. It was likely of the artist herself, a self-portrait within a self-portrait. She probably switched to the violinist due to the success of Merry Company.

The infrared reflectogram reveals the underpainting of a woman's face — highlighted in the dotted circle — underneath the violin player. Leyster may have originally painted a self portrait within a self portrait.

A leading star of her time

How was Judith Leyster received in her time? By all accounts, she achieved great success—as an artist in her own right and especially as a woman working in a mostly male industry.

Haarlem city chronicler Theodore Shrevel wrote in 1648,

There also have been many experienced women in the field of painting who are still renowned in our time, and who could compete with men. Among them, one excels exceptionally, Judith Leyster, called “the true Leading star in art.”

Shrevel’s praise includes a play on Leyster’s surname, which means “lodestar” or “leading star.” She often used the initials J and L crossed by a star to sign her paintings.

In the Dutch Republic, as in the rest of Europe, professional women painters were rarer than Shrevel suggests. Leyster was one of the only two women accepted as a master to the prestigious Haarlem painters’ guild in the entire 17th century. By 1635, she had taken on three pupils, a sign that she was a renowned artist.

Leyster disappears from view

But only six years after finishing this self-portrait, Leyster fell out of view for centuries. In 1636 she married painter Jan Miense Molenaer. (You can see him as a lute player in this self-portrait.) Few paintings by Leyster can be dated after her marriage. She managed Molenaer’s business affairs, may have helped with his paintings, and raised their five children.

A man with pale, peachy skin sits holding and tuning a lute next to a heavily laden table in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s body faces us, and he looks at us with light brown eyes under slightly furrowed brows. His round face is tipped slightly to our right, toward the neck of his instrument, so he looks out from the corners of his eyes. He has a round face, a snub nose, and his pale pink lips are closed. His dark blond mustache curls up at the ends, and he has a faint goatee. Nestled on chin-length, curly, light brown hair, his gray hat has a wide, soft brim pushed up around the crown. Much of his torso is covered by the lute but he wears a wide, white collar under a billowing, fawn-brown cloak. A cloth on his shirt or pinned under the instrument has small black dots on a white background. His knickerboxers match his cloak, and are tied with a brick-red ribbons just below his knees, over white stockings. More red ribbons are tied to the front of his black leather shoes, which have low heels. One foot rests splayed on the bare, hardwood floor. His other foot is propped up on the rail of the chair to support the instrument. One hand is braced over the strings, and he tunes the pegs with the other. He sits next to a table covered with an aquamarine-blue cloth and overflowing with kitchen utensils, smoking instruments, and food. Closest to the man, a pipe rests in an earthenware bowl filled with burning embers, which sits on a terracotta-orange plate. Near that are a silver-colored, covered ewer, a short drinking glass, a covered box with its lid open, and, to our right, a pewter plate with a roll and a knife. A wooden instrument like a small violin sits at the back of the table. The scene is lit from our left. The back wall of the room deepens from clay brown near the light to coffee brown in the upper right corner. — Jan Miense Molenaer, *Self-Portrait as a Lute Player*, c. 1637/1638, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, 2015.20.1

For more than 200 years, Leyster remained largely forgotten.

Her better-known contemporary Frans Hals came back into vogue in the 19th and 20th centuries. Knowingly or not, dishonest dealers made a fortune passing off Leyster’s works as Hals’s. It was only in 1897 that Merry Company was authenticated as Leyster’s work—and a rediscovery of her other works ensued.

Today, about 35 works are attributed to her.

A missing portrait rediscovered

In 2016 another Leyster self-portrait was found at an English country estate. Made about 20 years after the one in our collection, this long-lost treasure had been hanging in the house for centuries. Its owners had no idea who it was of or by.

“I have been looking for this picture my whole life,” said art historian Frima Fox Hofrichter. She had seen a record of “an oval portrait of the wife of the deceased” in the inventory of Molenaer’s possessions after his death.

The fact that the portrait had remained with Leyster’s family suggests that it was an intimate work. Leyster had not painted it not for sale.

Judith Leyster, Portrait of the artist, c. 1650, oil on panel, 12 1/8 x 8 5/8 in. Private collection, courtesy of Christie's.

In the earlier portrait, we see Leyster in her youth, brilliant and inviting. In the later one, a more reserved Leyster looks back at us with a steely gaze. But her talent remains intact. She still renders the deep flush of her cheeks and the delicate, translucent lace trimming her garments.

And she still portrays herself as a painter, palette and brush in hand.

March 27, 2024

Art Up Close: Judith Leyster, the Leading Star of Her Time

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