Boy with a Lute

Judith Leyster painted Boy with a Lute around 1626, one of her early works demonstrating her mastery of the candlelit single figure playing or singing — a subject closely related to Hals's musical tronies but given a distinctly personal treatment in her handling. The boy's absorption in his music, the warm candlelight revealing his face and hands against a dark ground, and the careful rendering of the lute's curved form demonstrate her technical accomplishment and her engagement with the Utrecht Caravaggist tradition of nocturnal music-making subjects that was influencing Haarlem painting at this date. The work shows why her contemporary reputation was sufficient to secure master status in the Haarlem guild.

The boy's animated expression and the gleaming lute are rendered with vigorous brushwork that reveals Hals's influence on Leyster's technique, while maintaining her own distinctive warmth and intimacy.