Judith Leyster - Her Work

Her Work

She signed her works Judita Leystar, often as a monogram with her initials JL with a star attached. This was a play on words; "Lei-star" meant "Lead star" in Dutch, which was the common name for the North star used at the time by Dutch mariners. Leyster was particularly innovative in her domestic genre scenes. In them, she creates quiet scenes of women at home, which were not a popular theme in Holland until the 1650s. Much of her other work was similar in nature to that of many of her contemporaries, such as Hals, Jan Steen, and the Utrecht Caravaggisti Hendrick Terbrugghen and Gerrit van Honthorst; their genre paintings, generally of taverns and other scenes of entertainment, catered to the tastes and interests of a growing segment of the Dutch middle class.