Boy Playing a Flute

Leyster’s teacher is undocumented. Although she was one of Frans Hals’s most gifted followers, there is no documentary evidence that she was apprenticed to him, but visual evidence suggests she may have worked with him for a time in some capacity. She learned as much from Dirk Hals as from Frans Hals’s motifs and style.

All known evidence indicates that Leyster virtually stopped working as a professional painter after her marriage to Miense Molenaer in 1636. The loss to Dutch art caused by her abandonment of painting when she was in her late twenties is keenly felt when we confront her Young Flute Player of about 1635, which shows her at her best. The brushwork here has become personal, and the subtle gradations in value on the light-grey wall and the colouristic harmony of the boy’s red hat, olive-green jacket, violet trousers, and mottled green chair make an exquisite effect.

When looking at this little masterwork it is difficult to understand how Leyster’s name could have been forgotten for more than two centuries after it was painted.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 15 minutes):

Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonata in A Major for flute and cembalo obligato, BWV 1032