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As she turns from her painting of a violin player and gazes smilingly out at the viewer, Judith Leyster manages to assert, in the most offhanded way, that she has mastered a profession traditionally viewed as a masculine domain. Although women drew and painted as amateurs, a professional woman painter was a rarity in Holland in the seventeenth century. Leyster was quite a celebrity even before she painted this self-portrait in about 1630. Her proficiency, even at the tender age of nineteen, had been so remarkable that in 1628 Samuel Ampzing singled her out for praise in his Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem in Holland some five years before she appears to have become the first woman ever to be admitted as a master in the Haarlem Saint Luke’s Guild. Even after 1636, when she moved to Amsterdam with her husband, the artist Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1610–1668), her artistic reputation never waned in her native city. In the late 1640s another historian of Haarlem, Theodorus Schrevelius, wrote, “There also have been many experienced women in the field of painting who are still renowned in our time, and who could compete with men. Among them, one excels exceptionally, Judith Leyster, called ‘the true leading star’ in art.”

The young artist sits in a remarkably casual manner, with her right arm resting on the back of her chair. As she looks out at the viewer with one hand holding a brush and the other her palette, a large bundle of brushes, and a white painter’s cloth, it appears as though she has just been interrupted from her work. Indeed, Leyster has purposely left the figure of the violin player on the canvas in an unfinished state. Nevertheless, she is dressed in quite formal attire, inappropriate for an artist busy working. One could hardly imagine her painting while wearing such a firmly starched, broad, lace-trimmed collar.

The inconsistencies can be explained in the dichotomy that existed between the traditional iconography for artists’ self-portraits and the relatively new informal concept of portraiture that had developed in Haarlem in the 1620s through the influence of Frans Hals (Dutch, c. 1582/1583 – 1666). It had long been accepted for an artist to depict him- or herself dressed in fine clothes before an easel, as did, for example, one of the few successful women artists of the sixteenth century, Catharina van Hemessen (1528–after 1587), in her self-portrait of 1548 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Basel). This tradition developed as artists sought to raise their social status from craftsmen to members of the liberal arts. The parallel that could be drawn between the noble character of painting and the social position of the artist is also evident in Cesare Ripa’s insistence that the personification of “Artificio of Konststuck” should be dressed in expensive and artfully made (konstigh) clothes. “He should be dressed ingeniously and nobly because art by itself is noble, which men can also call the second Nature.” Leyster abided by this tradition, yet she was also aware of the innovations of the greatest Haarlem portrait painter of the day, Frans Hals. While her brushwork is not as vivacious as that of Hals, the momentary quality of the image, conveyed through informality of pose and open expression, is related to his portrait style of the 1620s.

The exact date of this self-portrait is not known. Hofrichter has argued that Leyster executed it as a presentation piece at the time of her entry into the Haarlem Saint Luke’s Guild in 1633. The new regulations, which were established in 1631, required that each new master present to the guild “a painting two feet large” as testimony of skill. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons this attractive hypothesis is probably not correct. First, the costume cannot date that late. This flat, lace-edged style of collar can be found in portraits from the late 1620s but not in the 1630s. The style of the cap, moreover, is extremely close to one in Leyster’s Carousing Couple (1630, Musée du Louvre, Paris). The smooth modeling of the heads of the women in these two paintings is also extremely close. Their features are somewhat superficially rendered in comparison to the more three-dimensionally conceived genre figures that Leyster painted in the early to mid-1630s. Finally, the painting of a violin player displayed on the easel in the Self-Portrait derives from Merry Company, which she executed between about 1629 and 1631 [fig. 1]  [fig. 1] Judith Leyster, Merry Company, 1629/1631, oil on canvas, private collection, The Netherlands. Photo courtesy Noortman Master Paintings. It seems unlikely that she would have returned to this subject in 1633 to demonstrate her abilities for admission to the guild. All of this evidence suggests a date of about 1630 for this work, when Leyster was about twenty-one years old.

Leyster did not initially plan to paint the violin player on the canvas, but rather a portrait of a woman, whose face is visible in an infrared photograph and with Infrared ReflectographyInfrared Reflectography
A photographic or digital image analysis method which captures the absorption/emission characteristics of reflected infrared radiation. The absorption of infrared wavelengths varies for different pigments, so the resultant image can help distinguish the pigments that have been used in the painting or underdrawing. [fig. 2]  [fig. 2] Detail, infrared reflectogram, Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, c. 1630, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, 1949.6.1. Following the iconographic tradition of portraits depicting an artist at an easel, this woman was probably Leyster herself. She may have decided to depart from that tradition because of the popular success of the Merry Company scene from which the violin player derived, or to emphasize her versatility as a painter of both portraits and genre scenes. In any event, the happy disposition of the violin player gives the Self-Portrait a joyous character that adds much to its charm. By juxtaposing the bow of the violin player and her own paintbrush, Leyster seems to remind the viewer that, just as the musician has mastered his instrument to produce music, so too has she mastered the tools of her profession to create equally compelling art.

This painting, which is not signed, was long attributed to Frans Hals, in large part because Leyster’s own artistic personality was only rediscovered in 1893. The first art historian to identify the painting as a self-portrait by Leyster was Abraham Bredius, who, as editor of Oud-Holland, appended his opinion to an article in that journal positing that Hals has here portrayed Leyster. Unfortunately, the painting has suffered from overall abraision and minute pitting of the paint surface (see Technical Summary). X-radiographs [see X-radiographyX-radiography
A photographic or digital image analysis method that visually records an object’s ability to absorb or transmit x-rays. The differential absorption pattern is useful for examining an object’s internal structure as well as for comparing the variation in pigment types.] have also revealed that a long, horizontal rectangle of the original canvas is missing in the lower left and has been replaced by an insert [fig. 3]  [fig. 3] Detail of lower left corner of canvas, showing insert, X-radiograph, Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, c. 1630, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, 1949.6.1. The reddish dress in this area, thus, is a reconstruction and not from the hand of Judith Leyster. Nevertheless, after the painting’s 1992 restoration, which removed discolored layers of varnish that had severely disfigured the painting, this engaging image of a self-assured young female painter from Haarlem has taken on an iconic status in Dutch art.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

April 24, 2014