Judith Leyster: a new context
Onderzoek door Marleen Puyenbroek
About Judith Leyster
Judith Leyster (1609–1660) is one of the best-known female artists of the seventeenth-century Netherlands. The Haarlem-based painter was long regarded as an exception in a predominantly male art world. But is this view still accurate? In recent years, new paintings have been added to Leyster’s oeuvre, archival sources have become more accessible, and our understanding of women in the seventeenth-century art world has greatly increased. How exactly did Leyster differ from other female artists? And did she really stop painting after her marriage to her colleague Jan Miense Molenaer? Or did she, like many other women, continue to work alongside her husband in the studio and art business?
Judith Leyster, Vroege Brabantsson (tulpenboek), 1643, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem
Leyster’s artistic career
As the second research fellow of the Frans Hals Research Network, Marleen Puyenbroek is therefore re-examining Leyster’s life and work. She is systematically cataloguing known and previously unpublished archival documents relating to Leyster and Molenaer, looking, amongst other things, at their property holdings, household management and business records. In addition, she is comparing Leyster with more than 150 other women who produced art in the seventeenth century. In this way, Puyenbroek is seeking to gain a better understanding of what Leyster’s artistic practice actually entailed, and in what respects she was truly exceptional - and in what respects she was not.
About Marleen Puyenbroek
In recent years, Marleen Puyenbroek has been working at the University of Amsterdam as part of The Female Impact project, led by Judith Noorman. In March 2027, she will be awarded her PhD for her research into working women in the seventeenth-century art market and the diverse roles they played within it, ranging from artist and art dealer to trader in paint and second-hand goods. Together with Judith Noorman and Christi Klinkert, she is also organising a Scholars’ Day on Judith Leyster on 10 May 2027. The results of this event will form the basis for an academic collection in the ‘Frans Hals Studies’ series published by Taylor & Francis and for a new exhibition on Leyster at the Frans Hals Museum, both provisionally planned for 2030–2031. Would you like to find out more? Please get in touch at m.puyenbroek@franshalsmuseum.nl.
Photo by Bob Bronshoff.
