16 Facts About Judith Leyster

Judith Jans Leyster was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works, portraits, and still lifes.

Judith Leyster's work was highly regarded by her contemporaries, but largely forgotten after her death.

Some scholars speculate that Judith Leyster pursued a career in painting to help support her family after her father's bankruptcy.

Judith Leyster's first known signed works, Serenade and Jolly Topper, are dated 1629, when the artist was twenty years old.

Records show that Judith Leyster sued Frans Hals for accepting a student who left her workshop for his without first obtaining the Guild's permission.

Judith Leyster herself was fined for not having registered the apprentice with the Guild.

Judith Leyster was buried at a farm just outside of Haarlem.

Judith Leyster signed her works with a monogram of her initials JL with a star attached.

Judith Leyster specialized in portrait-like genre scenes, typically of one to three figures, who generally exude good cheer and are shown against a plain background.

Judith Leyster painted few actual portraits, and her only known history painting is David with the head of Goliath, which does not depart from her typical portrait style, with a single figure close to the front of the picture space.

Judith Leyster was rediscovered in 1893, when a painting admired for over a century as a work of Frans Hals was recognized as hers.

One has only to look at the work of a painter like Judith Leyster to detect the weakness of the feminine hand.

Judith Leyster attributed seven paintings to her, six of which are signed with her distinctive monogram 'JL*'.

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; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.

In 2022, the Currier Museum of Art purchased a Judith Leyster painting to go with its painting by Jan Miense Molenaer.

In March 2021 Judith Leyster's work was added to the "Gallery of Honor" at the Rijksmuseum.