Arcadópolis
The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier)
Judith Leyster, c. 1639
What you see
Two young men are carousing in a dark room. On the left, one sits with his head thrown back, draining a jug. On the right, the other, dressed in red from head to toe, raises a smoking pipe and holds a tall lidded tankard as he smiles at us. Behind the drinker a skeleton leans in, lifting an hourglass in one hand and holding a skull topped with a candle in the other.
The light is strong and comes from the front, casting shadows across the floor. The bright red suit and the drinker’s blue breeches glow against the olive green background. Don’t miss the pipe smoke, drawn with a few white lines, and the small flame of the candle on the skull.
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
The Arcadópolis Museum has 443 public-domain works in 40 rooms, free to explore in 3D in your browser.