Artist
Judith Leyster
Boy Playing the Flute
- Judith Leyster (Dutch, 1609–1660)
- Oil on canvas, 620 x 730 cm
- Early 1630s
- Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Gift 1871 Oskar II @Nationalmuseum
As of December 2019, Leyster’s painting Boy Playing the Flute is included in the CODART Canon as one of 100 Dutch/Flemish masterpieces (as voted on by CODART curator-members). Learn more about the painting at Google Arts & Culture | Nationalmuseum Stockholm
Self-Portrait
- Judith Leyster (Dutch, 1609–1660)
- Oil on canvas, 74.6 x 65.1 cm
- c. 1630
- National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Learn more about the painting at the National Gallery of Art
The Artist
Leyster, one of the first women to be admitted to the Saint Luke’s Guild of Haarlem, was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes, portraits, and genre scenes. For almost 200 years after her death, her works were attributed either to Frans Hals or to her husband, artist Jan Miense Molenaer. Many were re-attributed to her upon the discovery of her signature, a distinctive monogram of her initials which incorporates a shooting star—a play on words with her name, since Leyster means “
Books about Judith Leyster
Nonfiction
Judith Leyster: A Woman Painter in Holland’s Golden Age, by Frima Fox Hofrichter (Davaco Publishers, 1989)
Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World, edited by Pieter Biesboer and James A. Welu (Yale University Press, 1993)
Fiction
A Light of Her Own, by Carrie Callaghan (Amberjack Publishing, 2018)
Read more online about Judith Leyster at:
The Art Herstory blog:
A Space of Their Own: Explore >
The National Gallery, Washington DC: Explore >
The National Museum of Women in the Arts: Explore >
The Kremer Collection: Explore >
The Frans Hals Museum: Explore >
The National Gallery, London: Explore >
The Paris Review: Explore >