Lot 129: Portrait of a girl, bust-length, in a black dress with a white collar and cap

Judith Leyster (Haarlem 1610-1660 Heemstede)
Portrait of a girl, bust-length, in a black dress with a white collar and cap
oil on panel
15½ x 11¾ in. (39.4 x 29.9 cm.)

Sir Otto Beit (1865-1930), Bt., KMCG, FRS, and by descent to
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Bull; Christie's, London, 24 October 1946, lot 23 (170 gns. to Slenman[?]).

THE PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN COLLECTOR


This tender and carefully observed portrait of a young girl probably dates from the mid-1630s and can be related on both stylistic and compositional grounds to another portrait by Judith Leyster, of an unknown woman, in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (inv. nos. 65-8; see N. Köhler, ed., Paintings in Haarlem 1500-1850. The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum , Haarlem, 2006, no. 284, pp. 536-7), which is monogrammed and dated 1635. The painterly brushwork around the mouth and chin, in particular, as well as the form of the mouth and the direct gaze of the sitter are very similar in both pictures. In these vivid, naturalistic portraits, Leyster was clearly following the example of Frans Hals, in whose Haarlem workshop she probably trained from circa 1626-33. By 1633 she became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, but shortly after she moved to Amsterdam with her husband, the painter Jan Molenaer, whom she married in 1636. The intimate character of this portrait might suggest that the sitter was a family member. Judith had five children, born between 1637 and 1650, although her first daughter, Helena, was born in 1643, making it unlikely that she is the sitter, given the probable dating of the present work.