Arcadópolis
A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel
Judith Leyster, c. 1635
What you see
A boy and a girl pose close together, smiling. He, on the left, in a huge hat with a white scarf at his neck, looks upward and holds a tabby cat against his chest. She, on the right and lower down, in a cap and a pleated white collar, looks straight at us. At upper right, a hand lifts a dangling eel, and beside the girl’s face an index finger points upward.
The plain brown background and the dark clothes make the rosy faces and the whites of collar and scarf glow. The brushwork is quick and confident. Watch for the cat’s expression, mouth open and claws out, and the brim of the hat curving behind the girl.
About Judith Leyster
Judith Leyster was a Haarlem painter who in 1633 became a master in the city's Guild of St Luke, where she was then the only woman, which allowed her to run her own studio and take pupils. She painted musicians, drinkers and merry scenes with loose, lively brushwork, and signed with a monogram and a star, a pun on her surname, which refers to the “lodestar”. After her death she was forgotten and her pictures were credited to others, above all Frans Hals, until in 1893 the scholar Cornelis Hofstede de Groot recognized her monogram on seven paintings.
More by Judith Leyster
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