Judith Leyster* (1609-1660)

A young Lady holding a Lute, with a Music Score on her Lap, in a Candlelit Interior

Details

Judith Leyster* (1609-1660)
A young Lady holding a Lute, with a Music Score on her Lap, in a Candlelit Interior
oil on panel
12.5/8 x 8.7/8in. (32.1 x 22.7cm.)

Provenance

Dr. Alfons Jaff, Berlin, by 1927.
with A. Kauffmann, London, by whom sold in 1943.

Literature

Archiv fur Kunstgeschichte, II, no. 111, illustrated.
J. Harms, Judith Leyster: Ihr Leben und ihr werk, III and IV, Oude Holland, XLIV, 1927, pp. 145ff, fig. 7 and pp. 234-5, no. 5, pl. 8.
W. Bernt, Die niederlndische Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts, 1948, p. 481.
E. Plietzsch, Randbemerkungen zur hollndischen Interieurmalerei am Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts, Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, 18, 1956, p. 196.
E. Plietzsch, Hollndische und flmische Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 1960, p. 29.
W. Bernt, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century, 2, 1970, II, p. 679 illustrated.
F.F. Hofrichter, Judith Leyster, A Woman Painter in Holland's Golden Age, 1989, pp. 48-9, no. 17, pl. 17.
P. Biesboer, in J.A. Welu and P. Bisboer et al., in the catalogue of the exhibition, Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World, Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum, and Worcester, Worcester Art Museum, May-Dec. 1993, pp. 82-3, fig. 34.

Exhibited

Berlin, Akademie der Knste, 1914, no. 78.
Berlin, Akademie der Knste, 1925, no. 215.
Berlin, Gallerie Schffer, Die Meister des Hollndischen Interieurs, April-May, 1929, no. 44.

Lot Essay

Dated by Hofrichter - slightly later than Harms - circa 1631; Hofrichter points out that the present lot is the only female lutanist in Leyster's extant oeuvre. She observes that the sitter would appear to be waiting for someone to join her for a 'duet'; by reference to Roemer Visscher's Sinnepoppen she hypothesizes that the protagonist might have been considered to have the type of entertaining disposition which would put off potential suitors for her hand in marriage. More likely is that Leyster here records a delightful moment, when music is about to be made, and the play of candlelight on the charming sitter. Biesboer has pointed out that the same figure appears in the Man offering Money to a young Woman of 1631 in The Mauritshuis (see the 1993 exhibition catalogue, op. cit., no. 8), and the Worcester Art Museum Game of Tric Trac (ibid., no. 9).