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Judith Leyster (1609–1660) was a female Dutch artist, who painted in a variety of genres, includng genre subjects, portraits and even still lives.

She was born in Haarlem on July 28, 1609 as the eight child of Jan Willemsz., a local brewer and clothmaker. While her training is uncertain, she was well known enough by her teens to be including in a book about famous people from Haarlem published in 1626-27.

By 1633, she was a member of the Haarlem painters guild, one of only two women. Within two years of her entry into the guild, she had taken on three male students. Records show that Leyster sued Hals for stealing her students. Hals lost the suit and was required to pay her retribution.

In 1636, she married Jan Meinse Molenaer, a fellow artist. In hopes of better economic prospects, they moved to Amsterdam, the capital. They remained there for eleven years and had three children. They eventually moved to Heemstede where in 1660 Leyster died at the age of 50.

Most of Leyster's dated works are from 1629-1635, which coincides with the period before she had children. After that there are only two known pieces, 2 illustrations in a book about tulips from 1643 and a portrait from 1652.

Although well known during her lifetime, Leyster and her work were largely forgotten after her death. Leyster's modern fame came in the late 19th century. The Louvre had purchased a Frans Hals only to find it had been in fact by Judith Leyster. A dealer had changed the monogram that she used as a signature. Art historians since that period have often dismissed her as an imitator or follower of Hals.

She might have been his student or else a friendly colleague. In the early 1630s, Judith Leyster was present at the baptism of the child of Frans Hals. However, her relation to him is uncertain. Some of Leyster's work, such as the Merry Drinker from 1629 (now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam), has such as strong resemblance to The Jolly Drinker of 1627-28 by Hals (also in the Rijksmuseum) that some historians have asserted that Hals must have been Leyster's teacher.

Like Hals, Leyster created the paintings with lively, convivial taverns scenes and people playing music that were in demand by Holland's newly prosperous middle class, the principal buyers of contemporary Dutch art. Leyster was particularly innovative in her domestic genre scenes. In them, she creates quiet scenes of women at home, which were not popular in Holland until the 1650s.

See also

• Women Artists

References

• Chadwick, Whitney, Women, Art, and Society, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990
• Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976

External Links

Artist Profile at National Museum of Women in the Arts [1] Artist Profile at Artcyclopedia [[2]]

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