The First Female Master Painter

January 17, 2010
After spending half a day writing a scientific paper with other doctors at Leiden Medical Center we headed to Haarlem, which is of course the origin of the name of Manhattan's Harlem. After a short train ride we first crossed a canal, and what struck me was that people use the canals as a dumping ground for their old Christmas trees! The next thing I noticed were the very eclectic stores. Where else but in Holland would you have hookahs openly displayed in a tobacco shop? This was in the shadow of the beautiful and famous church that dates from the 1400s. The goal of the mini-outing was a visit to the Frans Hals Museum, where there was a special exhibit on the paintings of Judith Leyster (1609-1660). Judith Leyster was an innovative painter whose portraits showed smiling people having a good time, and she painted them at unusual angles. It is currently thought that she was the first woman in the Western World to be recognized by a painters' guild as a "master painter" (in 1633). This gave her the right to sell her paintings independently, take on students, and have her own workshop. Interestingly, before her marriage in 1636 she specialized in portraits, but after her marriage she painted still lifes. Her husband was also a painter, so it is speculated that she changed subjects so as to not compete with her husband. However, she was a celebrity in her own right, and her name "Ley-star" means leading star, or comet. Her signature consisted of a very decorative J with a star. The other notable thing about the exhibit is that they had several original documents on display that were pertinent to Leyster. In one she got into a legal dispute with Frans Hals because he recruited away one of her pupils. Another was her last will and testament, in which it was mentioned that she and her husband owned 6 houses, so their painting made them quite wealthy. Dutch 17th century law allowed women to own or co-own property, which was atypical in Europe at the time.