Visual Arts

General Historical Information

Leyster Judith Jans (also Leijster) was the Dutch Golden Age painter. She was one of three important women artists in Golden Age of Dutch painting, other two, Rachel Ruysch and Maria van Oosterwijk, were painters specialized flower still lifes, while gender Leyster works painted some portraits, and one still life. Number of works attributed to their survival ranges from less than 20 and 35. She gave much to painting after her marriage, which produced five children.

Leyster was born in Haarlem as eighth son of Jan Willemsz Leyster, the local brewery and maker of fabrics. Although details of its formation is not safe in his teens was quite well known for being mentioned in the Dutch book by Samuel Ampzing entitled Beschrijving lof Haerlem Ende der Stadt, originally written in 1621, revised in 1626-1627, and published in 1628 . (Delia 25)

Analysis And Description

In 1633, he was the member of Brotherhood of St. HaarlemLucas, second woman to be registered there ( first woman was Sara Van Baalberge registered in 1631, which like Leyster, was not the member of the family of artists established in Haarlem, and she also married another painter, Barent van Eysen). More women were currently active as painters of Haarlem, but having worked in family workshops that did not need skills required to sign work or run the workshop. Most notable example of this in case Grebb Leyster was Mary, sister of Pieter de Grebb, who was 7 years older than Leyster and active as the painter in workshop of his father in 1628. She studied with Leyster possibly as the student of his father and his daughter Elizabeth married painter Gabriel Metsu. Within two years after its entry into guild, Leyster had taken three male apprentices. Records show that Frans Hals Leyster sued for stealing one ...