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REDISCOVERING WOMEN ARTISTS
JUDITH LEYSTER
The Dutch artist Judith Leyster, for example, was extremely successful in her day as a portrait and genre specialist. But her reputation soon faded after her death, until 1893, when the Dutch art historian C. Hofstede de Groot published an article about her work, identifying her monogram–the letter “j” combined with a star (a play on her last name)—and reviving interest in her paintings.*
Nancy G. Heller, Women Artists
Judith Leyster, A Boy Playing a Flute, c. 1630, oil on canvas, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden
Like many women artists over the centuries, the works of Judith Leyster (1609-1666) were attributed in the past to other painters in art history. For example, Leyster’s lively A Boy Playing a Flute above, with its distinctive brushwork and luminous light, might have once been mistaken for a Frans Hals, her more famous colleague from Haarlem, where she spent most of her career.
Source: Women Artists: An Illustrated History by Nancy G. Heller, Abbeville Press, Publishers, New York, 1987.
Explore the visions of Rembrandt, another Dutch artist, in Through an Artist’s Eyes: Learning to Live Creatively.
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