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Artwork Details
Year
1633
Era
Baroque
Collection
National Gallery of Art Washington DC
Medium
Oil on canvas
Original Size
74.6 × 65.1 cm (29 3/8 × 25 5/8 in.)
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About This Artwork
An exuberant self-portrait showing Leyster mid-laugh, brush in hand, turning from her easel toward the viewer. The painting-within-a-painting shows a violinist from her genre scenes, demonstrating her specialization in lively musical subjects. The composition's spontaneity and confident brushwork convey both professional pride and personal vivacity. Leyster's direct engagement with the viewer creates unusual intimacy for formal portraiture. Long misattributed to Frans Hals, this work's 1893 reattribution revealed Leyster's significant achievement and sparked scholarly recovery of her oeuvre. The portrait remains an icon of women artists asserting their professional identity through self-representation.
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