Amsterdam
Where did Judith Leyster work in Aug 1655?
Judith Leyster Judith Jans Leyster ( also Leijster ; c . July 28 , 1609 – February 10 , 1660 ) was a Dutch Golden Age painter . She painted genre works , portraits and still lifes . Although her work was highly regarded by her contemporaries , Leyster and her work became almost forgotten after her death . Her entire oeuvre was attributed to Frans Hals or to her husband , Jan Miense Molenaer , until 1893 . It wasnt until the late 19th century that she was recognized for her artistic abilities . Biography . Leyster was born in Haarlem , the eighth child of Jan Willemsz Leyster , a local brewer and clothmaker . While the details of her training are uncertain , she was mentioned in a Dutch book by Samuel Ampzing titled Beschrijvinge ende lof der stadt Haerlem ( 1928 ) . Some scholars speculate that Leyster pursued a career in painting to help support her family after her fathers bankruptcy . She may have learned painting from Frans Pietersz de Grebber , who was running a respected workshop in Haarlem in the 1620s . During this time her family moved to the province of Utrecht , and she may have come into contact with some of the Utrecht Caravaggisti . Her first known signed work is dated 1629 . By 1633 , she was a member of the Haarlem Guild of St . Luke . There is some debate as to who was the first woman registered by the Guild , with some sources saying it was Leyster in 1633 and others saying it was Sara van Baalbergen in 1631 . Dozens of other female artists may have been admitted to the Guild of St . Luke during the 17th century ; however , the medium in which they worked was often not listed – at this time artists working in embroidery , pottery painting , metal and wood were included in guilds – or they were included for continuing the work of their deceased husbands . Leysters Self-Portrait , c . 1633 ( National Gallery of Art , Washington , D.C. ) , has been speculated to have been her presentation piece to the Guild . This work marks a historical shift from the rigidity of earlier womens self-portraits in favor of a more relaxed , dynamic pose . It is very relaxed by the standards of other Dutch portrait and comparable mainly to some by Frans Hals ; although it seems unlikely that she wore such formal clothes when painting in oils , especially the very wide lace collar . Within two years of entering the Guild , Leyster had taken on three male apprentices . Records show that Leyster sued Frans Hals for accepting a student who left her workshop for his without first obtaining the Guilds permission . The students mother paid Leyster four guilders in punitive damages , only half of what Leyster asked for , and Hals settled his part of the lawsuit by paying a three-guilder fine rather than return the apprentice . Leyster herself was fined for not having registered the apprentice with the Guild . Following her lawsuit with Frans Hals , Leysters paintings received greater recognition . In 1636 , Leyster married Jan Miense Molenaer , a more prolific artist than herself who worked on similar subjects . In hopes of better economic prospects , the couple moved to Amsterdam where Molenaer already had clients . They remained there for eleven years before returning to Heemstede in the Haarlem area . There they shared a studio in a small house located in the present-day Groenendaal Park . Leyster and Molenaer had five children , only two of whom survived to adulthood . Most of Leysters dated works antedate her marriage and are dated between 1629 and 1635 . There are few known pieces by her painted after 1635 : two illustrations in a book about tulips from 1643 , a portrait from 1652 , and a still life from 1654 that was discovered in a private collection in the 21st century . Leyster may have worked collaboratively with her husband as well . She died in 1660 , aged 50 . She was buried at a farm just outside of Haarlem , and her artwork not on display or recognized as hers for close to 200 years . The fact that the inventory of her estate attributed many of the paintings to the wife of Molenaer , not to Judith Leyster , may have contributed to the misattribution of her work to her husband . Work . She signed her works with a monogram of her initials JL with a star attached . This was a play on words : Leister meant Lead star in Dutch and for Dutch mariners of the time it was the common name for the North Star . The Leistar was the name of her fathers brewery in Haarlem . Only occasionally did she sign her works with her full name . She specialized in portrait-like genre scenes , typically of one to three figures , who generally exude good cheer and are shown against a plain background . Many are children ; others men with drink . Leyster was particularly innovative in her domestic genre scenes . These are quiet scenes of women at home , often with candle- or lamplight , particularly from a womans point of view . The Proposition ( Mauritshuis , The Hague ) is an unusual variant on these scenes , said by some to show a girl receiving unwelcome advances , instead of depicting a willing prostitute , the more common scene under such a title . However , this interpretation is not universally accepted . Much of her other work , especially in music-makers , was similar in nature to that of many of her contemporaries , such as her husband Molenaer , the brothers Frans and Dirck Hals , Jan Steen , and the Utrecht Caravaggisti Hendrick Terbrugghen and Gerrit van Honthorst . Their genre paintings , generally of taverns and other scenes of entertainment , catered to the tastes and interests of a growing segment of the Dutch middle class . She painted few actual portraits , and her only known history painting is David with the head of Goliath ( 1633 ) , which does not depart from her typical portrait style , with a single figure close to the front of the picture space . Leyster and Frans Hals . Although well-known during her lifetime and esteemed by her contemporaries , Leyster and her work were largely forgotten after her death . She was rediscovered in 1893 , when a painting admired for over a century as a work of Frans Hals was recognized as hers . Leysters work was criticized as showing the weakness of the feminine hand while many of her paintings were attributed to Frans Hals . The confusion – or perhaps deceit – may date to Leysters lifetime . Sir Luke Schaud acquired a Leyster , The Jolly Companions , as a Hals in the 1600s . The work ended up with a dealer , Wertheimer of Bond Street , London , who described it as one of the finest Hals paintings . Sir John Millars agreed with the Wertheimer about the authenticity and value of the painting . Wertheimer sold the painting to an English firm for £4,500 . This firm , in turn , sold the painting as a Hals to Baron Schlichting in Paris . In 1893 the Louvre found Leysters monogram under the fabricated signature of Hals . It is not clear when the false signature had been added . When the original signature was discovered , Baron Schlichting sued the English firm , who in turn attempted to rescind their own purchase and get their money back from the art dealer , Wertheimer . The case was settled in court on 31 May 1893 , with the plaintiffs ( the unnamed English firm ) agreeing to keep the painting for £3,500 + £500 costs . During the legal proceedings , there was no consideration for the work as an object of value under its new history : at no time did anyone throw his cap in the air and rejoice that another painter , capable of equalling Hals at his best , had been discovered . Another version of The Jolly Companions had been sold in Brussels in 1890 and bore Leysters monogram crudely altered to an interlocking FH . In 1893 Cornelis Hofstede de Groot wrote the first article on Leyster . He attributed seven paintings to her , six of which are signed with her distinctive monogram JL* . Art historians since then have often dismissed her as an imitator or follower of Hals , although this attitude changed somewhat in the late 20th century . Apart from the lawsuit mentioned above , the nature of Leysters professional relationship with Frans Hals is unclear ; she may have been his student or else a friendly colleague . She may have been a witness at the baptism of Hals daughter Maria in the early 1630s , since a Judith Jansder ( meaning daughter of Jan ) was recorded as a witness , but there were other Judith Janses in Haarlem . Some historians have asserted that Hals or his brother Dirck may have been Leysters teacher , owing to the close similarities between their works . Public collections . Museums holding works by Judith Leyster include the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam ; the Mauritshuis , The Hague ; the Frans Hals Museum , Haarlem ; the Louvre , Paris ; the National Gallery , London ; and the National Gallery of Art , Washington DC . In March of 2021 Leysters work was added to the Gallery of Honor at the Rijksmuseum . Leyster , Gesina ter Borch , and Rachel Ruysch are the first women to be included in the gallery .