Judith Leyster
Holland, 1609-60

In the late 1800s, museum officials at the Louvre in Paris discovered a signature on
a painting long thought to be by the great Dutch artist Frans Hals. While cleaning
The Jolly Companions, they found with surprise that the signature read "Judith
Leyster" (lie-stir), not "Frans Hals."

Leyster, the "mystery artist" behind The Jolly Companions, had been born about 250
years earlier in the Dutch city of Haarlem. At a time when women seeking art careers
were often helped by artist fathers, Leyster—a brewer's daughter—had to rely on
talent alone. By the age of 17, she had gained a reputation as an artist of great
promise, and at age 24 she was elected to the painters' Guild of St. Luke. She taught
painting for several years before she married another painter, Molenaer, in 1636 and
moved to Amsterdam. After her marriage, she produced fewer and fewer paintings.

Leyster's work has often been compared with that of Frans Hals, the artist originally
assumed to have painted The Jolly Companions. Hals was a friend of Leyster's. She
learned from the elements of his technique, especially his brushwork. Leyster turned
to other artists as well. She heard about Caravaggio's use of light and dark to
heighten drama in a painting and experimented with the effects of light in her
paintings throughout her career.